Why did I see this and suddenly think "Hmmm... isn't this a step towards putting the machines in charge - by letting them see everything and linking it all together...?"
I'm sorry, but running QEMM386 wouldn't have given me jack shit on my 486. A couple runs of MemMaker after having under 600K free, and I had 639K free. Beat that with a booted DOS box. Oh, and that was with both mouse and cd-rom drivers.
[Throws Brownish-Yellow flag] I call bullsh!t on that number.
639k total memory probably (which would be due to that 1k virus sitting in memory on your machine...) But best you were going to get was 628k free with Memmaker. Bits of DOS would still remain in lower memory.
(Senior Support Tech Emeritus & Short Order Cook - Quarterdeck)
And I even had mod points for today... But I couldn't resist. This one just deserves a bit more analysis..
Let's really look at company A (the GNULinux company) in a real world example, because like always, when people cite Windowze development-office stuff, they only present part of the picture.
Real world - okay - I can go along with this...
First off, let's use a office with 50 people, of which there are 2 full time developers and 3 full time IS people. The below are current prices from MicroWarehouse at their non-discounted prices.
3 full time IS people in a 50 person company? We're shifting into an alternate dimension as we speak. A 50 person company is going to be lucky to have 1 full time IS person, little more 3. More likely they'd outsource that task or it'd be one very harried desktop/server guy. But let's continue...
Now, for office B, first, the Windoze office (I'll leave hardware out of this cuz, especially with Exchange, that's a whole other cost issue):
* 50 copies of XP Pro: $21,747.50 * 1 Win2k file and print server with 50 CALS: $3018.72 * 1 Win2k with Exchange Ent. with 50 CALS: $12,107.44 * 2 copies of VS.NET Ent 2003: $4657.86 * 50 copies of Office XP Pro: $21,747.50
This doesn't assume any consulting fees, whatever, since we'll assume the 3 IS guys are Windoze experts and know how to set up everything.
Total just to get office B up and running so that said developers can develop code: approx. $63,279.02
Okay, for licensing, you are already off. You got your 50 CALs for File and Print services when you purchased XP Pro. You also got your Exchange CALs when you purchased 50 copies of Office XP Pro.
50 copies of XP pro at retail at Micro Warehouse is $275. 50 Copies come to $13750 U.S. -- unless you pay $435/copy of Windows XP.
A 50 person office isn't going to purchase Enterprise Edition of Exchange - just the regular one. (Does the same thing - only limit is a pesky 16GB database storage)
Copy of Windows 2k server is $835. You'll need 3 (one file, one print and one box doing exchangy stuff) - so total of $2505 there.
Copy of Exchange is $1115. $3330 to purchase 45 additional licenses (I'm not sure if they changed the rule on licensing for Outlook in Office - give you the benefit of the doubt here...)
So totals now come to a more realistic (I won't argue with your Office XP Pro price) $33500. But back to your world..
Now, let's look at office A, the GNULinux office. For basic comparisons, we'll use Redhat 9 deployed.
* 50 copies of RH 9: $0 (cost of 3 cd-r's: approx. $1.50) * Samba for file and print for all 50 users: $0 * Kroupware (I know, not the best Exchange equiv, but the only free thing really avail strongly for GNU/Linux that delivers scheduling that works) for 50 users: $0 * 2 copies of development environment for GTK-Java-whatever: $0 * Ximian XD2 with Ximian Open Office: $0
Cost (not including hardware or labor) to deploy office B to make snazzy app: $1.50
Won't argue here... at least not for the moment
Cost diff between office A & B: B: $63277.52
More like $33498.50...
Now, plugging in your formula of $1154 for two weeks of development which supposedly pay for VS.NET & Windows server ACLs and Windows Clients, we come up with this:
Office A has no deficit, since their software didn't cost them anything. In fact, they probably had one less sysadmin, so they might have already saved $60k.
$30k - being generous and not talking about an office that has to run other things besides
Yeah but they require some application running on the remote machine already. I was talking about something that exploits the RPC/DCOM vulnerability to push the fixing scripts...
Application? Besides the operating system? To add the fixit stuff to remotely run on the infected machine? You should already have administrative access to any user machine connecting to your domain - no need to deal with any exploit when you can just log into it - even remotely. So you run a program on your machine that remotely executes things. Am I missing something?
Imagine if you were fined whenever someone breaks into your house or car -- just because you didn't install better locks/better alarms/whatever doesn't mean that it's always your fault.
But you are fined... even if it isn't your fault sometimes. Someone breaks into your house or car. You file a claim with your insurance company. A bill or two later, you find that your rates have gone up.
As far as a tool to install, the stuff at SysInternals which let you attach remotely to a machine and push one of the fixit scripts are administrative dreams.
As an extra feature, for corporate keys, you could restrict it to the corporation's IP block.
This would work except for your sales force or anyone with laptop computers that download updates while not on the corporate network. (ala "Hey! Update your computer with that RPC patch...") Then you get all these machines that are getting updates for a corporate serial number while not on that address - getting flagged as pirates. Now you get your sales staff and remote workers calling into helpdesk with disabled machines that they need to bring into the office to get fixed... And IT calling the vendor that implements this to have it fixed/removed...
Ah HA! just bring one's OWN magnets, and put 'em in the computer for sticking screws on! Goody goody.. I love magnets...
Hmm. I keep having these intermittent hard drive failures - data keeps getting scrambled for some reason.. dOH!
(sorry. couldn't resist)
Re:Exchange performance...
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Opengroupware
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(re: anonymous coward speaking of my post history)
No need for me to troll. I'm commenting on what I know and my current IT environment (at least until my layoff day - less than 60 to go - woohoo!)
And it's interesting that you're posting AC...
I'd be more than happy to debate you regarding this assuming you want to actually sign in.
(and yes, my employer would be a company that you've probably heard of)
Re:Exchange performance...
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Opengroupware
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Oh yeah, forgot this gem. We were testing an email application. Send a thousand emails to a tiny free email server on Windows, it swallows and asks for more. Send a thousand emails to our Linux box, it blinks and says 'yeah, so what?' Send a thousand emails to the departmental Exchange server... it crashes and IT support screams at us for 'overloading' their box. Just cracks me up.
From my perspective (as a person who has done implementation of an Exchange 2000 set up for an e-mail centric company) I'd say that your IT people need to rebuild their Exchange environment. My current environment (in it's crappy current implementation - but that's another story) wouldn't even notice 1000 messages hitting. My previous environment (which was a bit more robust - part of that same other story) would have absorbed 1000 messages like Homer Simpson absorbs beer. Performance-wise, people would wonder what the slowdown was when a message would take more than 5 seconds to be delivered when sending from an outside source such as Yahoo or Hotmail.
Exchange 2k (implemented correctly) is secure, supports IMAP (they still need to work on this, but from an admin/setup standpoint you can fix it so it's acceptable performance), SMTP, POP and their ssl/authenticated counterparts. Calendaring works fine. The Unix and Mac folks in my environment (okay - pre 3/26/2003) didn't have any problems getting stuff from the Exchange server. One of my major tasks was making sure that they were supported properly.
I'm looking forward to seeing a product that matches (client and server - it takes both) what Exchange/Outlook does - there's a lot there - and kudos to the group that pulls it off.
You're saying it's crappy and virus-ridden - I still haven't seen an Exchange virus. (One that requires Exchange to function). In any event, I'm saying you're wrong on this one.
Heck - I've seen two now to my Earthlink account saying there's been "problems" with my credit card billing and to please enter updated information and submit via their "secure" server. I should put up the forms they used - some folks would fall for it.
Re:Rules for crappy movies (slightly off topic)
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Remember The Wizard?
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· Score: 1
* Movies based on Saturday Night Live characters or skits will suck.
This is more or less true but the exception is The Blues Brothers (Original). (yeah, I know - off topic, but couldn't let this stand completely unchallenged...)
Everyone that agrees to cooperate purchases a known "crippled" CD from their local record store on a specific day. Attempt to play it in their computer. Next day, go to local court and file a small-claims suit against the record company selling the defective CD for fraud and deceptive marketing to recoop the cost of the CD plus the cost of the computer tech that tested your CD drive to make sure it's good. ($125 or so for diagnositcs and the house call...)
200-300 lawsuits hit the record company the same day. They don't have the staff to go through all of that... DDOS the legal department.
- In 2050, The Internet Oracle (formerly the Usenet Oracle) wins a landslide lawsuit against Google for patent violation, infringement and using Zadoc without a license. The Internet Oracle licenses Zadoc to Google and as part of the settlement, Google is now responsible for answering all woodchuck-related queries.
"In a 32 bit world, you're a 2 bit user." -- All About the Pentiums by Weird Al
Well, probably not. On the other hand, there is this full database of every single Ford on the road and who owns it and where they live. And you are required by law to provide that information if you want to drive your Ford... and hey, you have to renew every year too... hmm.
How many of you are up-to-date on your recall notices for other stuff? Cars, toasters, appiances, tvs, child car seats, etc...
yet if your car was to suddenly veer off the road from a known defect you'd expect the auto company to deal with it! Driving the car down the road doesn't generally cause the wheels to just 'fall-off'! That is the issue with MS.
Hmm. Auto company issues a recall notice through all the regular outlets and send a letter to your house saying "Hey! We found this is a problem. Bring your car in and we'll fix it for free." You ignore it and your car breaks down. Ford/GM/Toyota/Nissan is then required to send a tow truck out to where your car broke down, bring it back to their shop and fix it? No. You pay those towing charges yourself unless you have a contract with someone like AAA. And at $15/mile it adds up quickly.
Maytag repair guys are what 100,000-to-1 with their insalled base? even doctors are about 100-200-to-1. yet PCs are supposed to be 10 or 20-to-1 for admins. It's a crock! If any other business system was this terrible, it would be bankrupt in a year! And MS only answer is that the admin should run around and babysit the system? They offer automated updates, then again blame the admin for not "testing". You all check the gas quality going in your car before you fill up right. Or, you consult medical texts after going to the doctor just to be sure he called your illness right
Maytag washers have been in "everyone's" household for what - 60-70 years now? That's a fairly decent amount of time for getting out the bugs. Doctors have been around for say 150 years or so practicing modern medicine... (but shouldn't be used in this argument). P.C.s - especially Intel 80x86 based PCs - a little over 20 years now. Given the two other examples you've used, there's still some time left for things to be worked out. Although the general numbers for IT is around 70-1. And babysitting the systems is an Admin's job for the most part - babysitting meaning make sure they remain healthy and functional and able to do the tasks they need to do. The end user may not check the gas quality, but the job of the station guy is to make sure they're putting gas and not water into their tanks. (or to stay within your analogy - the distributor is making sure gas is gas that goes in the tanker trucks - desktop support would be the station attendants)
I'm sorry, this stuff should just work. Compaies have invested 10 years and billions of dollars into windows and it still doesn't just work! Billy designed the system so that MS had 'plausable deniability' After all, they don't make hardware [not their fault], or drivers [not their fault], or systems [oems didn't test, not our fault], or software [sure we have Secret APIs but not their fault], they pretend to train admins [but not their fault if admin shamans don't dance right], and of course users because they make the computer do "stuff" MS might not have planned! [if MS did plan it, they'd charge more!] They have no techincal support without outrageous fees [Linux cost is mostly support--and you can afford to use it!] Well, it's basicly like OSS only costs more. They offer the same package of benifits!
Replace Companies with Government, replace windows with Space Shuttle. Complex machine - works fine doing what it's supposed to until some outside and unexpected event occurs. As far as technical support - having a knowledgeable person on the other end of the phone helping fix something - if they broke it you don't pay... if you didn't follow the warnings that were issued, you do pay. Back to that tow truck bit above.
Interestingly enough - the shaman admins who did the dance right slept while the slammer worm went around. The ones who didn't had sleepless nights. Means the companies that weren't hit should look at their shamans - might want to get new ones - or give them more resources so they can actually dance.
In any event - have to side with Microsoft on this one - there's too many things that *can* go wrong that are completely outside the software company's control to build in liability.
You seem very arrogant. You know so much more than senior management, yet your poor company has not seen fit to promote you to senior management. I wonder why. No I do not do the mail admin for a large company. Instead I do special projects for one. Basically, whenever they want something cool done they call us instead of their regular IT department.
On ocassion, yes, I am arrogant. Goes with the whole BOFH persona one ends up having to use when you're in IT. Regarding senior management - I haven't applied for a position. It's more fun running the systems than arguing over budgets. But where I wouldn't presume to argue with senior management over how a contract is written (unless it pertains to stuff I have to run), by the same token, I wouldn't expect them to tell me how mail works.
Yes, my company uses blackberries too. I helped work on the software that connected them with the company wide web based contact management program. But talking about what a few companies do is NOT talking about the people on the net do. The majority of people use PC's to get their email. Period.
True for the moment. But with text messaging coming of age stateside I'm willing to bet a quarter that is going to change.
Yes, corporations will not be paying licenses to let you download your lists to your private blackberry. But if it is BUSINESS related, they will let you do it. At least they do at my firm. It helps to be have agreed to work for a company that did not go broke in the silicon crash.
Actually, in my specific case, I don't care what gets sent out to the blackberries. Monthly flat fee. My employer is still hanging around, too. But that's not important.
As for why email continues to be used, that is simple. the technology is an INFANT, not mature. Give it a couple of years and those list servers could very well VANISH.
List boards are in an infant state? Umm.. no. List boards have existed for 20 years. Of course they were called BBSs back then... then matured to things like USENET, but the whole concept that you speak of has been around and kicking for a long time. And people still prefer to have messages sent to them vs. having to go out to get the messages. That's the whole thing that keeps Listserv-like stuff around.
One of the major reasons they might vanish is they are pretty close to being spam. Basically, the only real difference between them and spam is the fact that they are actually desired by the useres. So pretty much ANYTHING that attacks/hurts Spam is going to have an effect on the list servers. What was it we were talking - oh yeah, ways to fight spam. And you did not like the idea being discussed because it might cause minor problems for list servers.
I'd put this in the same category as Internet Radio. The Big Boys can afford to pay whatever tax, and the little guys end up disappearing...
You are correct that my solutiono does not deal with the relatively FEW people that do that kind of thing on the blackberry/cell phone
Ummm.. you aren't a mail admin in a midsized-to-large corporate environment, are you? In my personal case, the "Few" is 280 (75% with titles of Director or above) with Blackberry units. It's about 600 or so that we send messages to their cell phones via the servers directly.
It takes a company called AVANTGO to address that issue. Perhaps you have heard of them? They download web pages, like bulletin boards directly to your blackberry/cell phone etc.
Licensing wouldn't be in the budget for this product. And I already own Blackberry Servers and have licenses paid for to handle sending e-mail out from our Exchange servers. (Corporate environs is different than the individual user who decides he wants to get his Earthlink mail...)
As for rendering a page, I hate to tell you but there is no law that says a web page must have 3 million colors, 100 animated graphics, 15 fonts, 9 buttons, etc. etc. etc. If the people that make the bulletin board want to allow/encourage people like you to download to your cell phones, they can easily design their web pages to be easier to get than the email you seem to like
Bulletin boards have existed for a long time in various forms. And there have been programs that translated those boards into offline files and individual messages so that you could respond to them - much like people respond to messages in e-mail today. (Look up an old program called OzCIS for instance...) Web pages are nice. Easy to use. And don't notify you (without a bit of work ala Slashcode) with new messages so you could whip out a reply - or follow a flame war as they come in... or give you real-time message flow vs. having to go out and get stuff yourself - which would be the true key - user having to go get an update vs. update delivered to him. And of course that's assuming that the person running the board has the understanding that it should be a low-bandwidth non-graphic intensive site... also means you have to fire up a browser...
Email was NOT inteneded to be used for the purpose the listservers use it for.. It is NOT a good design for this pupose and will NEVER beat a well thought out web page designed to do the same thing.
E-mail wasn't intended to do a lot of the things it does today. 25MB attachments. File repository. Notification alerts. We don't make the call as to how something is used - the end user does. If it didn't work fairly well, it wouldn't be as widely deployed as it is now... and website message boards haven't taken over as the new nirvana - on the contrary - the bigger boards still send you summaries.
The pronouncements you make in your last statement definitely sounds like the stuff that I hear from my senior management. They don't know what they're talking about either.
Interesting. And how do I access this wonderous bulletin board via my blackberry? Or my cell phone? You know - the things with crappy web browsers and horrible interfaces for selecting links? Or suppose I have access to a slow dialup line? (Like I did in the Philippines a few years back) - I can manually type in all the neat POP3 commands to scan my mail via a telnet session.. but getting a page rendered and deciphering that?
Your solution to lists doesn't address how your users may access the data. You shooting for a career in management?:)
as opposed to exchange NEEDING 2k server, massive ram, and nightly backing because it eats the user database with almost religious like devotion
Well, yeah it does need 2k server. That whole Active Directory thingie. Massive amounts of RAM - okay - no argument there assuming you have a couple thousand folks on busy equipment. Eat the user database w/almost religious devotion though? I don't think so. I've had to restore a database once in the past 2 1/2 years in my 4000 (3000 - wait 2500.. dang this downsizing) user shop and the traffic we get is fairly high (think abuse@biblicalchapterflightfromegypt.net for instance). Now if you're running E2k on crappy equipment (that 486sx 25 just isn't the right system for the job), I can see how you might be praying the backups are good...
Yeah, I know what you mean. Take Star Wars for example. That was always intended as a Trilogy, and so Lucas made it into one after his first film was a wide success. And now he's making 3 more, since he'd always intended to. Right?
Actually, if memory serves, originally it was supposed to be 9 movies in total for Star Wars. Episode 4 (which is the original Star Wars we grew up with) - 6 which talk about the rise of the Jedi, Episodes 1-3 which show the rise of the Empire, and then Episodes 7-9 which shows the rebirth of the Republic.
5 years ago Japanese schoolgirls had cheap cellphones with more power than your cheap cell phone. It can hardly be called "progress" when we continue playing "keep up with the Joneses" so to speak.
It's easier to implement infrastructure changes when the area you have to deal with is slightly smaller than California. It's all those empty (sans people) miles of desert, mountain and farm land that hold back a lot of things because it's downright expensive to cover the whole of the U.S.
You'll notice that you don't get digital cellular reception everywhere in the country - a whole bunch of places will drop back to analog - or just drop - once you get away from the Interstate highways. Take a look at the coverage maps for Verizon, AT&T and Sprint.
That's why record stores are cooler than CDNow. You can walk in and say, "What's that song that goes 'Na na na na na something something blues?'" and they may be actually able to help you. Of course, web sites will *never* be that intuitive, but you can certainly make it as easy as possible to find something.
Actually, if this works then you would be able to go to a website that lets you search this way...
What Reziac is advocating is to ship your air freight by Delta or Northwest. Don't use United. (Denver and Chicago are United hubs - Salt Lake City is a Delta hub [along with Atlanta] and Minneapolis is almost all Northwest all the time).
Slashdot Mirror
Why did I see this and suddenly think "Hmmm... isn't this a step towards putting the machines in charge - by letting them see everything and linking it all together...?"
Now what did I do with my tin foil beanie?
I'm sorry, but running QEMM386 wouldn't have given me jack shit on my 486. A couple runs of MemMaker after having under 600K free, and I had 639K free. Beat that with a booted DOS box. Oh, and that was with both mouse and cd-rom drivers.
[Throws Brownish-Yellow flag] I call bullsh!t on that number.
639k total memory probably (which would be due to that 1k virus sitting in memory on your machine...) But best you were going to get was 628k free with Memmaker. Bits of DOS would still remain in lower memory.
(Senior Support Tech Emeritus & Short Order Cook - Quarterdeck)
And I even had mod points for today... But I couldn't resist. This one just deserves a bit more analysis..
.NET Ent 2003: $4657.86
.NET & Windows server ACLs and Windows Clients, we come up with this:
Let's really look at company A (the GNULinux company) in a real world example, because like always, when people cite Windowze development-office stuff, they only present part of the picture.
Real world - okay - I can go along with this...
First off, let's use a office with 50 people, of which there are 2 full time developers and 3 full time IS people. The below are current prices from MicroWarehouse at their non-discounted prices.
3 full time IS people in a 50 person company? We're shifting into an alternate dimension as we speak. A 50 person company is going to be lucky to have 1 full time IS person, little more 3. More likely they'd outsource that task or it'd be one very harried desktop/server guy. But let's continue...
Now, for office B, first, the Windoze office (I'll leave hardware out of this cuz, especially with Exchange, that's a whole other cost issue):
* 50 copies of XP Pro: $21,747.50
* 1 Win2k file and print server with 50 CALS: $3018.72
* 1 Win2k with Exchange Ent. with 50 CALS: $12,107.44
* 2 copies of VS
* 50 copies of Office XP Pro: $21,747.50
This doesn't assume any consulting fees, whatever, since we'll assume the 3 IS guys are Windoze experts and know how to set up everything.
Total just to get office B up and running so that said developers can develop code: approx. $63,279.02
Okay, for licensing, you are already off. You got your 50 CALs for File and Print services when you purchased XP Pro. You also got your Exchange CALs when you purchased 50 copies of Office XP Pro.
50 copies of XP pro at retail at Micro Warehouse is $275. 50 Copies come to $13750 U.S. -- unless you pay $435/copy of Windows XP.
A 50 person office isn't going to purchase Enterprise Edition of Exchange - just the regular one. (Does the same thing - only limit is a pesky 16GB database storage)
Copy of Windows 2k server is $835. You'll need 3 (one file, one print and one box doing exchangy stuff) - so total of $2505 there.
Copy of Exchange is $1115. $3330 to purchase 45 additional licenses (I'm not sure if they changed the rule on licensing for Outlook in Office - give you the benefit of the doubt here...)
So totals now come to a more realistic (I won't argue with your Office XP Pro price) $33500. But back to your world..
Now, let's look at office A, the GNULinux office. For basic comparisons, we'll use Redhat 9 deployed.
* 50 copies of RH 9: $0 (cost of 3 cd-r's: approx. $1.50)
* Samba for file and print for all 50 users: $0
* Kroupware (I know, not the best Exchange equiv, but the only free thing really avail strongly for GNU/Linux that delivers scheduling that works) for 50 users: $0
* 2 copies of development environment for GTK-Java-whatever: $0
* Ximian XD2 with Ximian Open Office: $0
Cost (not including hardware or labor) to deploy office B to make snazzy app: $1.50
Won't argue here... at least not for the moment
Cost diff between office A & B: B: $63277.52
More like $33498.50...
Now, plugging in your formula of $1154 for two weeks of development which supposedly pay for VS
Office A has no deficit, since their software didn't cost them anything. In fact, they probably had one less sysadmin, so they might have already saved $60k.
$30k - being generous and not talking about an office that has to run other things besides
Yeah but they require some application running on the remote machine already. I was talking about something that exploits the RPC/DCOM vulnerability to push the fixing scripts...
Application? Besides the operating system? To add the fixit stuff to remotely run on the infected machine? You should already have administrative access to any user machine connecting to your domain - no need to deal with any exploit when you can just log into it - even remotely. So you run a program on your machine that remotely executes things. Am I missing something?
Imagine if you were fined whenever someone breaks into your house or car -- just because you didn't install better locks/better alarms/whatever doesn't mean that it's always your fault.
But you are fined... even if it isn't your fault sometimes. Someone breaks into your house or car. You file a claim with your insurance company. A bill or two later, you find that your rates have gone up.
As far as a tool to install, the stuff at SysInternals which let you attach remotely to a machine and push one of the fixit scripts are administrative dreams.
As an extra feature, for corporate keys, you could restrict it to the corporation's IP block.
This would work except for your sales force or anyone with laptop computers that download updates while not on the corporate network. (ala "Hey! Update your computer with that RPC patch...") Then you get all these machines that are getting updates for a corporate serial number while not on that address - getting flagged as pirates. Now you get your sales staff and remote workers calling into helpdesk with disabled machines that they need to bring into the office to get fixed... And IT calling the vendor that implements this to have it fixed/removed...
Ah HA! just bring one's OWN magnets, and put 'em in the computer for sticking screws on! Goody goody .. I love magnets...
Hmm. I keep having these intermittent hard drive failures - data keeps getting scrambled for some reason.. dOH!
(sorry. couldn't resist)
(re: anonymous coward speaking of my post history)
No need for me to troll. I'm commenting on what I know and my current IT environment (at least until my layoff day - less than 60 to go - woohoo!)
And it's interesting that you're posting AC...
I'd be more than happy to debate you regarding this assuming you want to actually sign in.
(and yes, my employer would be a company that you've probably heard of)
Oh yeah, forgot this gem.
We were testing an email application. Send a thousand emails to a tiny free email server on Windows, it swallows and asks for more. Send a thousand emails to our Linux box, it blinks and says 'yeah, so what?' Send a thousand emails to the departmental Exchange server... it crashes and IT support screams at us for 'overloading' their box. Just cracks me up.
From my perspective (as a person who has done implementation of an Exchange 2000 set up for an e-mail centric company) I'd say that your IT people need to rebuild their Exchange environment. My current environment (in it's crappy current implementation - but that's another story) wouldn't even notice 1000 messages hitting. My previous environment (which was a bit more robust - part of that same other story) would have absorbed 1000 messages like Homer Simpson absorbs beer. Performance-wise, people would wonder what the slowdown was when a message would take more than 5 seconds to be delivered when sending from an outside source such as Yahoo or Hotmail.
Exchange 2k (implemented correctly) is secure, supports IMAP (they still need to work on this, but from an admin/setup standpoint you can fix it so it's acceptable performance), SMTP, POP and their ssl/authenticated counterparts. Calendaring works fine. The Unix and Mac folks in my environment (okay - pre 3/26/2003) didn't have any problems getting stuff from the Exchange server. One of my major tasks was making sure that they were supported properly.
I'm looking forward to seeing a product that matches (client and server - it takes both) what Exchange/Outlook does - there's a lot there - and kudos to the group that pulls it off.
You're saying it's crappy and virus-ridden - I still haven't seen an Exchange virus. (One that requires Exchange to function). In any event, I'm saying you're wrong on this one.
Heck - I've seen two now to my Earthlink account saying there's been "problems" with my credit card billing and to please enter updated information and submit via their "secure" server. I should put up the forms they used - some folks would fall for it.
* Movies based on Saturday Night Live characters or skits will suck.
This is more or less true but the exception is The Blues Brothers (Original). (yeah, I know - off topic, but couldn't let this stand completely unchallenged...)
How to help them learn? How about this:
Everyone that agrees to cooperate purchases a known "crippled" CD from their local record store on a specific day. Attempt to play it in their computer. Next day, go to local court and file a small-claims suit against the record company selling the defective CD for fraud and deceptive marketing to recoop the cost of the CD plus the cost of the computer tech that tested your CD drive to make sure it's good. ($125 or so for diagnositcs and the house call...)
200-300 lawsuits hit the record company the same day. They don't have the staff to go through all of that... DDOS the legal department.
Forgot this one...
- In 2050, The Internet Oracle (formerly the Usenet Oracle) wins a landslide lawsuit against Google for patent violation, infringement and using Zadoc without a license. The Internet Oracle licenses Zadoc to Google and as part of the settlement, Google is now responsible for answering all woodchuck-related queries.
"In a 32 bit world, you're a 2 bit user." -- All About the Pentiums by Weird Al
Well, probably not. On the other hand, there is this full database of every single Ford on the road and who owns it and where they live. And you are required by law to provide that information if you want to drive your Ford... and hey, you have to renew every year too... hmm.
How many of you are up-to-date on your recall notices for other stuff? Cars, toasters, appiances, tvs, child car seats, etc...
yet if your car was to suddenly veer off the road from a known defect you'd expect the auto company to deal with it! Driving the car down the road doesn't generally cause the wheels to just 'fall-off'! That is the issue with MS.
Hmm. Auto company issues a recall notice through all the regular outlets and send a letter to your house saying "Hey! We found this is a problem. Bring your car in and we'll fix it for free." You ignore it and your car breaks down. Ford/GM/Toyota/Nissan is then required to send a tow truck out to where your car broke down, bring it back to their shop and fix it? No. You pay those towing charges yourself unless you have a contract with someone like AAA. And at $15/mile it adds up quickly.
Maytag repair guys are what 100,000-to-1 with their insalled base? even doctors are about 100-200-to-1. yet PCs are supposed to be 10 or 20-to-1 for admins. It's a crock! If any other business system was this terrible, it would be bankrupt in a year! And MS only answer is that the admin should run around and babysit the system? They offer automated updates, then again blame the admin for not "testing". You all check the gas quality going in your car before you fill up right. Or, you consult medical texts after going to the doctor just to be sure he called your illness right
Maytag washers have been in "everyone's" household for what - 60-70 years now? That's a fairly decent amount of time for getting out the bugs. Doctors have been around for say 150 years or so practicing modern medicine... (but shouldn't be used in this argument). P.C.s - especially Intel 80x86 based PCs - a little over 20 years now. Given the two other examples you've used, there's still some time left for things to be worked out. Although the general numbers for IT is around 70-1. And babysitting the systems is an Admin's job for the most part - babysitting meaning make sure they remain healthy and functional and able to do the tasks they need to do. The end user may not check the gas quality, but the job of the station guy is to make sure they're putting gas and not water into their tanks. (or to stay within your analogy - the distributor is making sure gas is gas that goes in the tanker trucks - desktop support would be the station attendants)
I'm sorry, this stuff should just work. Compaies have invested 10 years and billions of dollars into windows and it still doesn't just work! Billy designed the system so that MS had 'plausable deniability' After all, they don't make hardware [not their fault], or drivers [not their fault], or systems [oems didn't test, not our fault], or software [sure we have Secret APIs but not their fault], they pretend to train admins [but not their fault if admin shamans don't dance right], and of course users because they make the computer do "stuff" MS might not have planned! [if MS did plan it, they'd charge more!] They have no techincal support without outrageous fees [Linux cost is mostly support--and you can afford to use it!] Well, it's basicly like OSS only costs more. They offer the same package of benifits!
Replace Companies with Government, replace windows with Space Shuttle. Complex machine - works fine doing what it's supposed to until some outside and unexpected event occurs. As far as technical support - having a knowledgeable person on the other end of the phone helping fix something - if they broke it you don't pay... if you didn't follow the warnings that were issued, you do pay. Back to that tow truck bit above.
Interestingly enough - the shaman admins who did the dance right slept while the slammer worm went around. The ones who didn't had sleepless nights. Means the companies that weren't hit should look at their shamans - might want to get new ones - or give them more resources so they can actually dance.
In any event - have to side with Microsoft on this one - there's too many things that *can* go wrong that are completely outside the software company's control to build in liability.
You seem very arrogant. You know so much more than senior management, yet your poor company has not seen fit to promote you to senior management. I wonder why. No I do not do the mail admin for a large company. Instead I do special projects for one. Basically, whenever they want something cool done they call us instead of their regular IT department.
On ocassion, yes, I am arrogant. Goes with the whole BOFH persona one ends up having to use when you're in IT. Regarding senior management - I haven't applied for a position. It's more fun running the systems than arguing over budgets. But where I wouldn't presume to argue with senior management over how a contract is written (unless it pertains to stuff I have to run), by the same token, I wouldn't expect them to tell me how mail works.
Yes, my company uses blackberries too. I helped work on the software that connected them with the company wide web based contact management program. But talking about what a few companies do is NOT talking about the people on the net do. The majority of people use PC's to get their email. Period.
True for the moment. But with text messaging coming of age stateside I'm willing to bet a quarter that is going to change.
Yes, corporations will not be paying licenses to let you download your lists to your private blackberry. But if it is BUSINESS related, they will let you do it. At least they do at my firm. It helps to be have agreed to work for a company that did not go broke in the silicon crash.
Actually, in my specific case, I don't care what gets sent out to the blackberries. Monthly flat fee. My employer is still hanging around, too. But that's not important.
As for why email continues to be used, that is simple. the technology is an INFANT, not mature. Give it a couple of years and those list servers could very well VANISH.
List boards are in an infant state? Umm.. no. List boards have existed for 20 years. Of course they were called BBSs back then... then matured to things like USENET, but the whole concept that you speak of has been around and kicking for a long time. And people still prefer to have messages sent to them vs. having to go out to get the messages. That's the whole thing that keeps Listserv-like stuff around.
One of the major reasons they might vanish is they are pretty close to being spam. Basically, the only real difference between them and spam is the fact that they are actually desired by the useres. So pretty much ANYTHING that attacks/hurts Spam is going to have an effect on the list servers. What was it we were talking - oh yeah, ways to fight spam. And you did not like the idea being discussed because it might cause minor problems for list servers.
I'd put this in the same category as Internet Radio. The Big Boys can afford to pay whatever tax, and the little guys end up disappearing...
You are correct that my solutiono does not deal with the relatively FEW people that do that kind of thing on the blackberry/cell phone
Ummm.. you aren't a mail admin in a midsized-to-large corporate environment, are you? In my personal case, the "Few" is 280 (75% with titles of Director or above) with Blackberry units. It's about 600 or so that we send messages to their cell phones via the servers directly.
It takes a company called AVANTGO to address that issue. Perhaps you have heard of them? They download web pages, like bulletin boards directly to your blackberry/cell phone etc.
Licensing wouldn't be in the budget for this product. And I already own Blackberry Servers and have licenses paid for to handle sending e-mail out from our Exchange servers. (Corporate environs is different than the individual user who decides he wants to get his Earthlink mail...)
As for rendering a page, I hate to tell you but there is no law that says a web page must have 3 million colors, 100 animated graphics, 15 fonts, 9 buttons, etc. etc. etc. If the people that make the bulletin board want to allow/encourage people like you to download to your cell phones, they can easily design their web pages to be easier to get than the email you seem to like
Bulletin boards have existed for a long time in various forms. And there have been programs that translated those boards into offline files and individual messages so that you could respond to them - much like people respond to messages in e-mail today. (Look up an old program called OzCIS for instance...) Web pages are nice. Easy to use. And don't notify you (without a bit of work ala Slashcode) with new messages so you could whip out a reply - or follow a flame war as they come in... or give you real-time message flow vs. having to go out and get stuff yourself - which would be the true key - user having to go get an update vs. update delivered to him. And of course that's assuming that the person running the board has the understanding that it should be a low-bandwidth non-graphic intensive site... also means you have to fire up a browser...
Email was NOT inteneded to be used for the purpose the listservers use it for.. It is NOT a good design for this pupose and will NEVER beat a well thought out web page designed to do the same thing.
E-mail wasn't intended to do a lot of the things it does today. 25MB attachments. File repository. Notification alerts. We don't make the call as to how something is used - the end user does. If it didn't work fairly well, it wouldn't be as widely deployed as it is now... and website message boards haven't taken over as the new nirvana - on the contrary - the bigger boards still send you summaries.
The pronouncements you make in your last statement definitely sounds like the stuff that I hear from my senior management. They don't know what they're talking about either.
Interesting. And how do I access this wonderous bulletin board via my blackberry? Or my cell phone? You know - the things with crappy web browsers and horrible interfaces for selecting links? Or suppose I have access to a slow dialup line? (Like I did in the Philippines a few years back) - I can manually type in all the neat POP3 commands to scan my mail via a telnet session.. but getting a page rendered and deciphering that?
:)
Your solution to lists doesn't address how your users may access the data. You shooting for a career in management?
as opposed to exchange NEEDING 2k server, massive ram, and nightly backing because it eats the user database with almost religious like devotion
Well, yeah it does need 2k server. That whole Active Directory thingie. Massive amounts of RAM - okay - no argument there assuming you have a couple thousand folks on busy equipment. Eat the user database w/almost religious devotion though? I don't think so. I've had to restore a database once in the past 2 1/2 years in my 4000 (3000 - wait 2500.. dang this downsizing) user shop and the traffic we get is fairly high (think abuse@biblicalchapterflightfromegypt.net for instance). Now if you're running E2k on crappy equipment (that 486sx 25 just isn't the right system for the job), I can see how you might be praying the backups are good...
Yeah, I know what you mean. Take Star Wars for example. That was always intended as a Trilogy, and so Lucas made it into one after his first film was a wide success. And now he's making 3 more, since he'd always intended to. Right?
Actually, if memory serves, originally it was supposed to be 9 movies in total for Star Wars. Episode 4 (which is the original Star Wars we grew up with) - 6 which talk about the rise of the Jedi, Episodes 1-3 which show the rise of the Empire, and then Episodes 7-9 which shows the rebirth of the Republic.
Here we are folks, watch Animatrix starring.... the Animaniacs! Or maybe The Matrix sequel should have been called Cinematrix
Aww.. come on now. That would have been fun. Could you just see...
Yakko as Morpheus
"What is The Matrix? Well, it isn't your Father's Matrix, that's for sure.."
Wakko as Neo
"Whoa. I just learned Kung Fu. I'm hungry, when do we eat?"
Dot as Trinity
"I'm cute."
Pinky and the Brain as Agents
"What are we going to do today, Agent Brain I mean Smith?"
"The same thing we do every day, try to take over Zion!"
Slappy Squirrel as the Oracle
"C'mon, here. I ain't gettin' any younger ya know."
Oh heck.. okay..
:)
578 mod 256 = 66
291 mod 256 = 35
762 mod 256 = 250
662 mod 256 = 150
C:\>nslookup
Default Server: honshu.casaichiban.com
Address: 192.168.10.252
> 66.35.250.150
Server: honshu.casaichiban.com
Address: 192.168.10.252
Name: slashdot.org
Address: 66.35.250.150
Aliases: 150.250.35.66.in-addr.arpa
Yeah.. I'd close my eyes too...
5 years ago Japanese schoolgirls had cheap cellphones with more power than your cheap cell phone. It can hardly be called "progress" when we continue playing "keep up with the Joneses" so to speak.
It's easier to implement infrastructure changes when the area you have to deal with is slightly smaller than California. It's all those empty (sans people) miles of desert, mountain and farm land that hold back a lot of things because it's downright expensive to cover the whole of the U.S.
You'll notice that you don't get digital cellular reception everywhere in the country - a whole bunch of places will drop back to analog - or just drop - once you get away from the Interstate highways. Take a look at the coverage maps for Verizon, AT&T and Sprint.
That's why record stores are cooler than CDNow. You can walk in and say, "What's that song that goes 'Na na na na na something something blues?'" and they may be actually able to help you. Of course, web sites will *never* be that intuitive, but you can certainly make it as easy as possible to find something.
Actually, if this works then you would be able to go to a website that lets you search this way...
What Reziac is advocating is to ship your air freight by Delta or Northwest. Don't use United. (Denver and Chicago are United hubs - Salt Lake City is a Delta hub [along with Atlanta] and Minneapolis is almost all Northwest all the time).