...but going after service providers may be a bit shortsighted.
Access providers and service providers were once one and the same. Telephony, Video, and other services were used as justification to build out the access network. Internet running over coax or twisted pair are innovations that came about after a substantial investment was made. Find a major US access provider that did not originate as a service provider. Over the 2000's, service providers that didn't control access networks came to compete the services offered by those access providers. With the migration of nearly every kind of service to IP, the same access/service providers find themselves with the burden of having their access networks pseudo-nationalized by proponents of net neutrality, while at the same time having fierce competition to their service offerings by unregulated over the top players. The same companies are required to meet regulatory requirements for providing 911, CALEA, and increasing rates from content providers, while their unregulated over-the-top competition merely faces the technical challenge of optimizing the service delivery path and funding lobbyists to support continued regulation of access.
Although many feel strongly that internet access is a utility, and should be regulated as something people should have a right to have, we should understand that the costs to bring this access to homes is very high. Access to bandwidth 4-8 times that of a T1 at about 1/10th the cost is a bargain, and the only way the math works is through oversubscription and the sale of bundled services.
With Internet access/service providers on the defensive on all fronts - access, telephony service, video service, and internet value-adds (email, etc) - it should be no surprise that these companies see other revenue streams, either in adjacent markets, content provider ownership, or new models (pay-per-byte).
The bizarre irony of all of it is that darlings of the tech world, Google, Apple, and Adobe, are working very hard to lock consumers into their own channels. Google, using an ad-supported model, churns out services at a feverish pace, but only to wrap you into the services and intermediate all other service providers and their customers. Apple, enforcing strict control over their environments in an attempt to channel consumers into a high-margin Apple world. Adobe, working to be the content deliverer for "any screen" by providing the "one platform" with Flash and Air. Each works to lock users and developers into their sticky feature sets, happy that Joe User's hard feelings are directed at the service provider. They take some heat, but is it commensurate to the potential threat to consumer choice?
Whatever the outcomes are for access/service providers, there will be a platform and privacy fight for you waiting when the dust clears.
Rest assured, service providers are planning for v6. You're right that *having* to change will ultimately force the issue. Service and access providers face some hurdles that take time to work out.
1 - Carrier equipment isn't ready. Not all v6 support is created equal. The provider-side equipment must have support for hardware-accelerated packet forwarding. Many devices, like the CMTSs that cable companies use, make v6 support in software and max out their CPU long before reaching an acceptable throughput rate. Combine this with the fact that traditional channelized and circuit switched services (TV and Phone) are being transitioned to IP, and you see that replacement of major back end components will be required. $$$
2 - Customer premise equipment (CPE) isn't ready. Go find a SOHO router that has v6 support. Even when you find one, can you expect the next guy to pay the premium for the product? The home router vendors (i'm speculating) see supporting v6 as a move that would prevent them from selling another router in the future. Why sell one thing when you could sell two? They will wait until the last minute. Other standards, such as DOCSIS 3 and Packetcable 2.0, aren't fully implemented in traditional carrier-provided CPE.
3 - Providers are in the position of needing to replace CPE in every household to support IPv6. The same providers are looking at doing the same for the transition to IP Video, IP telephony, service mobility, etc. Given that each visit to the home costs $50-100, plus the cost of the equipment, it makes a lot of sense to get as many problems as possible solved with the fewest customer interactions and parts purchased. Imagine that the CPE costs $400 and the home visit costs $100. For just a million customers, it would cost $500M to do the change. Be glad the providers are doing this carefully, these numbers are too large to be absorbed quickly without changing your bill.
4 - NATing customers is an option, but it can break services. Ironially, the services it breaks are some of the ones the carriers provide. SIP-based telephony and video generally rely on UDP for signaling, as do the RTP carriers of media. Providers are getting pressure to support more consumer devices, and when they do, they have less control of the packet flows. Quality Assurance and interoperability testing becomes less and less viable. Proxies and NAT may be an option, but they are bad options. Carriers know this, and it means even more money to maintain service parity alongside meeting today's customer expectations of using the devices of their choice. It simply isn't all HTTP.
5 - There are some problems that we are only just seeing. When your provider applies a/64 address for its and your side of the connection, it must also provide address space behind your router. You get a/48,/56, or something like that. When this happens, changes must be applied on both sides of the connection to ensure routing works. The mechanics of the whole thing, and the options, best practices, and security policy on the customer side are not worked out, or are immature.
Acknowledging your assertion that we have collectively had enough time, I think we have much of the hard work done. Now some of the other players and business interests need to get their part done. It won't be too-little, too-late. It will be just-enough,at-the-11th-hour (once it gets painful).
This might be a good target for sarcastic comments, but I wonder if there isn't a more worthwhile line of thinking.
Do we put folks into prison to protect those who are outside, or is it merely punitive? Knowing that many are going to come out at some point, doesn't it make sense to prepare the convicted for living a normal life? The story seems to highlight the question for me of whether we would rather "punish" or "correct" those whose trajectories seem to favor harm to society. What do you say to a person who chooses the side that, despite the hardships that come with it, is the one he understands?
Over the last twelve years, I've worked in a variety of computing roles, from very early in the support process to "architecture" roles, as well as some software development roles. During that time, I have bemoaned my bad timing as a "late to the game", especially during the dot com bust. But the provided me with a smaller, more diverse set of opportunities that have ultimately led to better perspective and a more attractive resume. I finished the college degree that I started before the bust while I consulted for small businesses. During that time I acted as an 'IT Guy' while also pursuing problem solving opportunities that only a programmer could complete. I'll not trouble you with more, except to give you some bullet-form advice.
- Expect continuous learning, and be willing to do it on your off time.
- Differentiate yourself somehow. While having a perspective on a broad range of topics, be deep in some.
- Look to small-to-medium sized businesses, and don't be afraid of the approach. Play the numbers, 10 might not want you, but the 11th might.
I can't stress this enough. The small and medium sized companies can't always afford services from the Oracles and IBMs of the world. They are stuck buying off-the-shelf solutions that half fit their needs. Your niche, if you choose to take it, is the guy who can provide higher-end solutions for lower-end prices. They can spend 2-10k on you, but the licensing for software alone can eliminate the complex off-the-shelf products. The custom solutions are for your resume, the low-end pay will get you by, and in the long run, you'll have seen the entrepreneurial side of things. Also, understand that these companies are often run by individual owners who can make the decision without a committee or HR department. You play to their own feelings of value-for-the-dollar. Example: a customer of mine needed custom reports that his vendor wouldn't provide him. I reverse-engineered the database and built the reports. Build trust - I said it would take 2 weeks, it took 3. Charge for 2, comp one. I was first pick for the next service.
- Don't expect long-term employment right now, but make try to make the short-term work noteworthy.
- Value certifications, especially the college degree. Shrug off the naysayers. In easy job markets, they don't mean much, but in hard ones, they are what keeps you "in the running" against your competition. Accrue these any way you can.
- Know IP. IPv4, IPv6. Simply being able to subnet puts you in a higher tier. Do it.
- Get an idea of what's ahead. Convergence is a big deal. If you have free time, learn to build apps for iPhone, Android, etc. This is going to be a huge area with lots of opportunity. If you can build these inexpensively, there are companies that will pay for them. "I can build you a working app for $10k" looks like a great deal for many companies.
- Forget the discouraging responses to this thread. The truth is that competent technology folks are NOT everywhere. Be a good one and you'll have no problem, at least in the next economic cycle.
What really turned me away from the MagicJack was that the company that produced it was called "Ymax." The use of "Ymax", which looks to me like a deliberate attempt to hijack the term "WiMax." Those familiar with WiMax, the 802.16-based wireless access technology, would not likely confuse the WiMax and MagicJack's proprietor. But those on the periphery conversations around WiMax might. The attempt to siphon off good will toward WiMax shared by the ill-informed seems like a deceitful salesman's scam. Not that I know the owner. I'm not getting one.
It's harder than it looks. In an ideal LTE environment, services that had their own dedicated channels in earlier technologies share the IP-based channel. Your average VoIP call is made of bidirectional streams of, say, 20-millisecond samples. When one doesn't arrive, you're missing audio and it's too late to recover. To have decent call quality, the packets must be protected via some resource reservation method - QOS, etc. Your 911 call _IS_ more important than the next guy's file transfer. (I can hear the howls of the net neutrality folks). Aside from voice calls, high-bitrate streams (video) and any real-time communication may need resource reservation. Since it isn't something that has been as important in the past, the providers and their suppliers must get it working before they can sell it... Vendors haven't been making cellular radio equipment for that spectrum. Don't forget that since it's RF spectrum, there may be interference as well. Lots of hurdles.
By my recollection, you need a computer built more than five years after the Windows OS you want to run. My 2007 work PC still struggles a little with XP. The Windows Vista Capable program should have started in 2011.
Linux is all over the place. Can we get over the idea that Linux should be all things to all people? You will rarely find a tool of any kind that does everything well. All one needs to do to beat the general purpose tool is to specialize in an area.
Microsoft and Apple both make better desktop products. But Linux is easily the best choice of the three for many server applications, including embedded systems. When you need minor customization, Linux is king. With Linux, making small-audience targeted applications is easier. And it's made it to the point where you can not be a well-rounded data person without basic Linux skills. It's there, and it adds up to a lot of presence.
So can we cut it out with the "why is it failing" bit? You sound like Microsoft PR.
Wow, that's a direction I didn't expect. Yes, I am American. My comment wasn't "You need a law suit". If you want to stay *out* of court, you go to a lawyer for advice.
When you have questions about the law,/. is not the place to go.
I have had Intellectual Property concerns with employers over code, too. The best thing to do is manage the IP agreement on the front end, when you take a job. Once you've got a conflict, you need a lawyer. They lawyer might say, "you've got no case. Either the company can work with you to formally release the code, or you can quit and rewrite it."
If I had an employee who went to a lawyer with that question, I would see it as an opportunity to build a better relationship with my empoyee. The employee obviously cares about an issue, and is self motivated. Those people are very valuable. The issue doesn't have to be expensive or compromising for the company, and it doesn't have to turn into a legal ordeal.
Your snap judgment of "Americans" is unfortunate. If the story reveals anything, it's that the American legal code is too complicated for its citizens. The US is not the only place with this problem.
It's not that simple. Why do we need so many models of cars? Needs are different between people and applications. Our applications will always develop into using 100% of the bandwidth provided.
The standards are developed at different times, and they have their own lifespans. RS232 is falling out of use, but it will be a loong time before it is gone. Firewire found new competition with USB 2.0, but if USB 3.0 is still asynchronous, it still won't compete with isosynchronous firewire's ability to guarantee a level of bandwidth on the wire. Addressing is another issue - some solutions allow for dynamic addressing, some for world-addressibility (IP by way of Ethernet), and some require manual addressing (SCSI, usually). Some protocols allow anything to be communicated (IP, Ethernet), some don't (SATA). The list of differences goes on and on. Over time, there may be consolidation of interfaces at the consumer level, but forget about the world finally arriving at one any time soon.
Exactly. Python has tons of documentation, and none of it is easy to use. Even O'Reilly blew it by using the "Programming Python" title for what should have been the Python Cookbook. Sometimes you just want a straightforward language reference. Why is this so hard?
Most of the CD's I have purchased recently have come directly from the hands of the band members at the shows I go to see. The big players just doesn't fund the most talented acts, at least the way things are today. 'Indie' is huge, and probably way underreported. I most certainly continue to purchase music, both live and prerecorded, and I know that many others do the same.
It seems clear to me that enough money is flowing to provide at least minimal funding for the artists, but not necessarily enough to sustain a gigantic industry distribution machine.
Yeah, Microsoft needs to release its next release of Windows so it can save the economy from not needing to upgrade. Jesus, what's taking so long? I want to keep my job.
For the self-motivated, certs provide clear education milestones. The cert industries produce some fine documentation - often the Cert guides provide better references than product guides. I use the my Cisco Press CCNA Exam Guide regularly, and I can loan it to others. Its explanation of the OSI model is fantastic.
I would expect that people who obtain certs on their own without for-pay classes would be motivated, intelligent, and have a fairly comprehensive knowledge of computing.
As the economy rolls through its cycles, the criteria that employers use to select employees change. The certs on your resume are more important when there are more people competing for the jobs. For anyone interested in maintaining maximum employability through the different phases of the economy, I would recommend accruing any resume item that you may be able to rightfully claim while the funds for doing so are there.
A band I'm in just finished up releasing a CD, and the total bill came to over $4k. We weren't happy with one studio, and it was $1k down the drain. Another studio was great, but that was $2k or so for 2.5 days of recording, mixing, and mastering. Manufacturing was another >$1k.
I recently purchased a MOTU Ultralight, and it's fantastic. I record up to 8 channels of Audio in, and I have a lot of flexibility. The recorded audio sounds clean and I have not faced any glitches that negatively effected sound quality. No hums, clicks, buzzes, or anything else... The included software is alright, but you'll probably want to buy a better package.
Overall, I think that we could have done better by spending the $1k necessary for recording hardware and software, another $1k on mics and other recording equipment, and done it all ourselves. Next time, I'll have all the gear and I'll just rent a mountain cabin for 3 days at a time and try to turn it into a big uninterrupted recording session. It would still be cheaper than going the studio route again.
You may also want to look at the Presonus Firepod as well.
Companies have vastly different expectations, and there are no standards. Larger companies expect to do more training, and smaller companies will find the $3k outside training courses a bit difficult to swallow.
Your company will take as much as you can give them. The best technical IT workers have done a substantial amount of work off the clock. How good do you want to be, and how much will you be able to offer a company after a layoff in a bad job market?
My suggestion to anyone in your situation would be to spend as much time as you are comfortable, and to spend that time learning transferable skills. Spending time learning internet standards would make more sense than spending time learning your company's proprietary products, in the case where you can choose. If you know something, it would also be a good idea to make documented accomplishments.
If you are thinking of leaving for a more supportive company, and you live in the US, I think now is a great time. Companies are having quite a hard time finding good people.
I just interviewed with a technology company whose dress code appeared to be jeans and a t-shirt. Each person who interviewed me was dressed down. I wore a full suit. These companies are not dead.
If you will not be interfacing with the customer, or if the company prides itself on a relaxed kind of work environment, body modifications will work fine. If the customers would be critical of your body modifications (as many customers and large companies will be), you will not be an acceptable person to represent the company. Likewise, if the company must use you as part of a presentation, you will probably need to look clean and dress up.
Sales Engineers are a good example of a group of technical people who would not be hired with body modifications.
It is not about whether the company likes it or not, it is about whether you are more or less useful to the company with your presentation. The IBM's of the world will probably err on the side of tradition just to avoid problems down the road.
I recently decided to move back into a full time position from IT consulting. My most important customer needed a part-time IT guy to replace me. Despite the fact that the technical requirements weren't high, I had a bit of trouble finding a person who I trusted to replace me -- presentation was a big deal. I settled on a guy whose presentation was better, and whose technical skills were good enough. I would have chosen him over a person whose presentation was worse and whose IT skills were better. I was concerned about my customer's relationship with his IT guy, not just whether the job got done.
You represent the people who stand behind you, whether it is your friends, your family, or your employer. Those who take a hardline individualist approach to their presentation shouldn't be surprised when others don't want them in their group. They don't want to be represented by these hardline individuals, and they don't expect much cooperation from them.
Even with a great CPU, OSX has been week on the server side. Linux will keep doing what it's been doing - providing high-performance, free server capabilities and a relatively weak desktop experience. Apple will continue to do what it's been doing - providing a fantastic user experience and weak server support. Apple will sell the nicest x86 machines for the highest prices.
As far as I know, Microsoft's binary document formats are the standard, not it's XML formats. The binary formats are the ones that can be read by Office 97 forward, and those are the ones by which the world of office productivity is still ruled. These open formats might be nice to have, and they might even shed light on how the binary formats work, but they are not all that is needed to open the door to proper open source implementation of the standards.
Slashdot Mirror
...but going after service providers may be a bit shortsighted.
Access providers and service providers were once one and the same. Telephony, Video, and other services were used as justification to build out the access network. Internet running over coax or twisted pair are innovations that came about after a substantial investment was made. Find a major US access provider that did not originate as a service provider. Over the 2000's, service providers that didn't control access networks came to compete the services offered by those access providers. With the migration of nearly every kind of service to IP, the same access/service providers find themselves with the burden of having their access networks pseudo-nationalized by proponents of net neutrality, while at the same time having fierce competition to their service offerings by unregulated over the top players. The same companies are required to meet regulatory requirements for providing 911, CALEA, and increasing rates from content providers, while their unregulated over-the-top competition merely faces the technical challenge of optimizing the service delivery path and funding lobbyists to support continued regulation of access.
Although many feel strongly that internet access is a utility, and should be regulated as something people should have a right to have, we should understand that the costs to bring this access to homes is very high. Access to bandwidth 4-8 times that of a T1 at about 1/10th the cost is a bargain, and the only way the math works is through oversubscription and the sale of bundled services.
With Internet access/service providers on the defensive on all fronts - access, telephony service, video service, and internet value-adds (email, etc) - it should be no surprise that these companies see other revenue streams, either in adjacent markets, content provider ownership, or new models (pay-per-byte).
The bizarre irony of all of it is that darlings of the tech world, Google, Apple, and Adobe, are working very hard to lock consumers into their own channels. Google, using an ad-supported model, churns out services at a feverish pace, but only to wrap you into the services and intermediate all other service providers and their customers. Apple, enforcing strict control over their environments in an attempt to channel consumers into a high-margin Apple world. Adobe, working to be the content deliverer for "any screen" by providing the "one platform" with Flash and Air. Each works to lock users and developers into their sticky feature sets, happy that Joe User's hard feelings are directed at the service provider. They take some heat, but is it commensurate to the potential threat to consumer choice?
Whatever the outcomes are for access/service providers, there will be a platform and privacy fight for you waiting when the dust clears.
Rest assured, service providers are planning for v6. You're right that *having* to change will ultimately force the issue. Service and access providers face some hurdles that take time to work out.
1 - Carrier equipment isn't ready. Not all v6 support is created equal. The provider-side equipment must have support for hardware-accelerated packet forwarding. Many devices, like the CMTSs that cable companies use, make v6 support in software and max out their CPU long before reaching an acceptable throughput rate. Combine this with the fact that traditional channelized and circuit switched services (TV and Phone) are being transitioned to IP, and you see that replacement of major back end components will be required. $$$
2 - Customer premise equipment (CPE) isn't ready. Go find a SOHO router that has v6 support. Even when you find one, can you expect the next guy to pay the premium for the product? The home router vendors (i'm speculating) see supporting v6 as a move that would prevent them from selling another router in the future. Why sell one thing when you could sell two? They will wait until the last minute. Other standards, such as DOCSIS 3 and Packetcable 2.0, aren't fully implemented in traditional carrier-provided CPE.
3 - Providers are in the position of needing to replace CPE in every household to support IPv6. The same providers are looking at doing the same for the transition to IP Video, IP telephony, service mobility, etc. Given that each visit to the home costs $50-100, plus the cost of the equipment, it makes a lot of sense to get as many problems as possible solved with the fewest customer interactions and parts purchased. Imagine that the CPE costs $400 and the home visit costs $100. For just a million customers, it would cost $500M to do the change. Be glad the providers are doing this carefully, these numbers are too large to be absorbed quickly without changing your bill.
4 - NATing customers is an option, but it can break services. Ironially, the services it breaks are some of the ones the carriers provide. SIP-based telephony and video generally rely on UDP for signaling, as do the RTP carriers of media. Providers are getting pressure to support more consumer devices, and when they do, they have less control of the packet flows. Quality Assurance and interoperability testing becomes less and less viable. Proxies and NAT may be an option, but they are bad options. Carriers know this, and it means even more money to maintain service parity alongside meeting today's customer expectations of using the devices of their choice. It simply isn't all HTTP.
5 - There are some problems that we are only just seeing. When your provider applies a /64 address for its and your side of the connection, it must also provide address space behind your router. You get a /48, /56, or something like that. When this happens, changes must be applied on both sides of the connection to ensure routing works. The mechanics of the whole thing, and the options, best practices, and security policy on the customer side are not worked out, or are immature.
Acknowledging your assertion that we have collectively had enough time, I think we have much of the hard work done. Now some of the other players and business interests need to get their part done. It won't be too-little, too-late. It will be just-enough,at-the-11th-hour (once it gets painful).
Cheers,
rhadc
I believe there may be at least one loophole. RFC 2549 describes a method for applying QOS in a way the FCC may have no right to regulate.
RFC 2549
This might be a good target for sarcastic comments, but I wonder if there isn't a more worthwhile line of thinking.
Do we put folks into prison to protect those who are outside, or is it merely punitive? Knowing that many are going to come out at some point, doesn't it make sense to prepare the convicted for living a normal life? The story seems to highlight the question for me of whether we would rather "punish" or "correct" those whose trajectories seem to favor harm to society. What do you say to a person who chooses the side that, despite the hardships that come with it, is the one he understands?
Over the last twelve years, I've worked in a variety of computing roles, from very early in the support process to "architecture" roles, as well as some software development roles. During that time, I have bemoaned my bad timing as a "late to the game", especially during the dot com bust. But the provided me with a smaller, more diverse set of opportunities that have ultimately led to better perspective and a more attractive resume. I finished the college degree that I started before the bust while I consulted for small businesses. During that time I acted as an 'IT Guy' while also pursuing problem solving opportunities that only a programmer could complete. I'll not trouble you with more, except to give you some bullet-form advice.
- Expect continuous learning, and be willing to do it on your off time.
- Differentiate yourself somehow. While having a perspective on a broad range of topics, be deep in some.
- Look to small-to-medium sized businesses, and don't be afraid of the approach. Play the numbers, 10 might not want you, but the 11th might.
I can't stress this enough. The small and medium sized companies can't always afford services from the Oracles and IBMs of the world. They are stuck buying off-the-shelf solutions that half fit their needs. Your niche, if you choose to take it, is the guy who can provide higher-end solutions for lower-end prices. They can spend 2-10k on you, but the licensing for software alone can eliminate the complex off-the-shelf products. The custom solutions are for your resume, the low-end pay will get you by, and in the long run, you'll have seen the entrepreneurial side of things. Also, understand that these companies are often run by individual owners who can make the decision without a committee or HR department. You play to their own feelings of value-for-the-dollar. Example: a customer of mine needed custom reports that his vendor wouldn't provide him. I reverse-engineered the database and built the reports. Build trust - I said it would take 2 weeks, it took 3. Charge for 2, comp one. I was first pick for the next service.
- Don't expect long-term employment right now, but make try to make the short-term work noteworthy.
- Value certifications, especially the college degree. Shrug off the naysayers. In easy job markets, they don't mean much, but in hard ones, they are what keeps you "in the running" against your competition. Accrue these any way you can.
- Know IP. IPv4, IPv6. Simply being able to subnet puts you in a higher tier. Do it.
- Get an idea of what's ahead. Convergence is a big deal. If you have free time, learn to build apps for iPhone, Android, etc. This is going to be a huge area with lots of opportunity. If you can build these inexpensively, there are companies that will pay for them. "I can build you a working app for $10k" looks like a great deal for many companies.
- Forget the discouraging responses to this thread. The truth is that competent technology folks are NOT everywhere. Be a good one and you'll have no problem, at least in the next economic cycle.
Best of luck!
What really turned me away from the MagicJack was that the company that produced it was called "Ymax." The use of "Ymax", which looks to me like a deliberate attempt to hijack the term "WiMax." Those familiar with WiMax, the 802.16-based wireless access technology, would not likely confuse the WiMax and MagicJack's proprietor. But those on the periphery conversations around WiMax might. The attempt to siphon off good will toward WiMax shared by the ill-informed seems like a deceitful salesman's scam. Not that I know the owner. I'm not getting one.
It's harder than it looks. In an ideal LTE environment, services that had their own dedicated channels in earlier technologies share the IP-based channel. Your average VoIP call is made of bidirectional streams of, say, 20-millisecond samples. When one doesn't arrive, you're missing audio and it's too late to recover. To have decent call quality, the packets must be protected via some resource reservation method - QOS, etc. Your 911 call _IS_ more important than the next guy's file transfer. (I can hear the howls of the net neutrality folks). Aside from voice calls, high-bitrate streams (video) and any real-time communication may need resource reservation. Since it isn't something that has been as important in the past, the providers and their suppliers must get it working before they can sell it. .. Vendors haven't been making cellular radio equipment for that spectrum. Don't forget that since it's RF spectrum, there may be interference as well. Lots of hurdles.
By my recollection, you need a computer built more than five years after the Windows OS you want to run. My 2007 work PC still struggles a little with XP. The Windows Vista Capable program should have started in 2011.
Linux is all over the place. Can we get over the idea that Linux should be all things to all people? You will rarely find a tool of any kind that does everything well. All one needs to do to beat the general purpose tool is to specialize in an area.
Microsoft and Apple both make better desktop products. But Linux is easily the best choice of the three for many server applications, including embedded systems. When you need minor customization, Linux is king. With Linux, making small-audience targeted applications is easier. And it's made it to the point where you can not be a well-rounded data person without basic Linux skills. It's there, and it adds up to a lot of presence.
So can we cut it out with the "why is it failing" bit? You sound like Microsoft PR.
Wow, that's a direction I didn't expect. Yes, I am American. My comment wasn't "You need a law suit". If you want to stay *out* of court, you go to a lawyer for advice.
/. is not the place to go.
When you have questions about the law,
I have had Intellectual Property concerns with employers over code, too. The best thing to do is manage the IP agreement on the front end, when you take a job. Once you've got a conflict, you need a lawyer. They lawyer might say, "you've got no case. Either the company can work with you to formally release the code, or you can quit and rewrite it."
If I had an employee who went to a lawyer with that question, I would see it as an opportunity to build a better relationship with my empoyee. The employee obviously cares about an issue, and is self motivated. Those people are very valuable. The issue doesn't have to be expensive or compromising for the company, and it doesn't have to turn into a legal ordeal.
Your snap judgment of "Americans" is unfortunate. If the story reveals anything, it's that the American legal code is too complicated for its citizens. The US is not the only place with this problem.
You need a laywer, sir.
far out. you're not even born yet.
There's a lot of prior art in the bad customer service area. Need I say more?
On a serious note, I wish Amazon would stop with the lame patents. It makes it harder and harder to buy from them.
It's not that simple. Why do we need so many models of cars? Needs are different between people and applications. Our applications will always develop into using 100% of the bandwidth provided.
The standards are developed at different times, and they have their own lifespans. RS232 is falling out of use, but it will be a loong time before it is gone. Firewire found new competition with USB 2.0, but if USB 3.0 is still asynchronous, it still won't compete with isosynchronous firewire's ability to guarantee a level of bandwidth on the wire. Addressing is another issue - some solutions allow for dynamic addressing, some for world-addressibility (IP by way of Ethernet), and some require manual addressing (SCSI, usually). Some protocols allow anything to be communicated (IP, Ethernet), some don't (SATA). The list of differences goes on and on. Over time, there may be consolidation of interfaces at the consumer level, but forget about the world finally arriving at one any time soon.
Exactly. Python has tons of documentation, and none of it is easy to use. Even O'Reilly blew it by using the "Programming Python" title for what should have been the Python Cookbook. Sometimes you just want a straightforward language reference. Why is this so hard?
Most of the CD's I have purchased recently have come directly from the hands of the band members at the shows I go to see. The big players just doesn't fund the most talented acts, at least the way things are today. 'Indie' is huge, and probably way underreported. I most certainly continue to purchase music, both live and prerecorded, and I know that many others do the same.
It seems clear to me that enough money is flowing to provide at least minimal funding for the artists, but not necessarily enough to sustain a gigantic industry distribution machine.
Yeah, Microsoft needs to release its next release of Windows so it can save the economy from not needing to upgrade. Jesus, what's taking so long? I want to keep my job.
I'm sick of having to get up off the couch. They should have had this 20 years ago!
For the self-motivated, certs provide clear education milestones. The cert industries produce some fine documentation - often the Cert guides provide better references than product guides. I use the my Cisco Press CCNA Exam Guide regularly, and I can loan it to others. Its explanation of the OSI model is fantastic.
I would expect that people who obtain certs on their own without for-pay classes would be motivated, intelligent, and have a fairly comprehensive knowledge of computing.
As the economy rolls through its cycles, the criteria that employers use to select employees change. The certs on your resume are more important when there are more people competing for the jobs. For anyone interested in maintaining maximum employability through the different phases of the economy, I would recommend accruing any resume item that you may be able to rightfully claim while the funds for doing so are there.
A band I'm in just finished up releasing a CD, and the total bill came to over $4k. We weren't happy with one studio, and it was $1k down the drain. Another studio was great, but that was $2k or so for 2.5 days of recording, mixing, and mastering. Manufacturing was another >$1k.
I recently purchased a MOTU Ultralight, and it's fantastic. I record up to 8 channels of Audio in, and I have a lot of flexibility. The recorded audio sounds clean and I have not faced any glitches that negatively effected sound quality. No hums, clicks, buzzes, or anything else... The included software is alright, but you'll probably want to buy a better package.
Overall, I think that we could have done better by spending the $1k necessary for recording hardware and software, another $1k on mics and other recording equipment, and done it all ourselves. Next time, I'll have all the gear and I'll just rent a mountain cabin for 3 days at a time and try to turn it into a big uninterrupted recording session. It would still be cheaper than going the studio route again.
You may also want to look at the Presonus Firepod as well.
Cheers!
Companies have vastly different expectations, and there are no standards. Larger companies expect to do more training, and smaller companies will find the $3k outside training courses a bit difficult to swallow.
Your company will take as much as you can give them. The best technical IT workers have done a substantial amount of work off the clock. How good do you want to be, and how much will you be able to offer a company after a layoff in a bad job market?
My suggestion to anyone in your situation would be to spend as much time as you are comfortable, and to spend that time learning transferable skills. Spending time learning internet standards would make more sense than spending time learning your company's proprietary products, in the case where you can choose. If you know something, it would also be a good idea to make documented accomplishments.
If you are thinking of leaving for a more supportive company, and you live in the US, I think now is a great time. Companies are having quite a hard time finding good people.
Good luck
rhadc
Microsoft will embrace ODF. And monkeys fly out of my butt.
I just interviewed with a technology company whose dress code appeared to be jeans and a t-shirt. Each person who interviewed me was dressed down. I wore a full suit. These companies are not dead.
If you will not be interfacing with the customer, or if the company prides itself on a relaxed kind of work environment, body modifications will work fine. If the customers would be critical of your body modifications (as many customers and large companies will be), you will not be an acceptable person to represent the company. Likewise, if the company must use you as part of a presentation, you will probably need to look clean and dress up.
Sales Engineers are a good example of a group of technical people who would not be hired with body modifications.
It is not about whether the company likes it or not, it is about whether you are more or less useful to the company with your presentation. The IBM's of the world will probably err on the side of tradition just to avoid problems down the road.
I recently decided to move back into a full time position from IT consulting. My most important customer needed a part-time IT guy to replace me. Despite the fact that the technical requirements weren't high, I had a bit of trouble finding a person who I trusted to replace me -- presentation was a big deal. I settled on a guy whose presentation was better, and whose technical skills were good enough. I would have chosen him over a person whose presentation was worse and whose IT skills were better. I was concerned about my customer's relationship with his IT guy, not just whether the job got done.
You represent the people who stand behind you, whether it is your friends, your family, or your employer. Those who take a hardline individualist approach to their presentation shouldn't be surprised when others don't want them in their group. They don't want to be represented by these hardline individuals, and they don't expect much cooperation from them.
Even with a great CPU, OSX has been week on the server side. Linux will keep doing what it's been doing - providing high-performance, free server capabilities and a relatively weak desktop experience. Apple will continue to do what it's been doing - providing a fantastic user experience and weak server support. Apple will sell the nicest x86 machines for the highest prices.
Linux will be fine.
As far as I know, Microsoft's binary document formats are the standard, not it's XML formats. The binary formats are the ones that can be read by Office 97 forward, and those are the ones by which the world of office productivity is still ruled. These open formats might be nice to have, and they might even shed light on how the binary formats work, but they are not all that is needed to open the door to proper open source implementation of the standards.
rhadc