So I'll probably side step it as well. OK, maybe just a few rants...
More than your lack of certifications, (and although most slashdotters will probably have kittens at this statement) your problem is your degree. I should preface this by saying that I have a degree and change in a natural science, and that I was only a few units short of C-Sci degree. But in my little corner of the world, a C-Sci degree on the resume is a direct ticket into the trashcan. Sorry folks, rant all you want, but that's the way it is in almost every company I have worked with and for. We even give an MIS degree more weight (just enough to read it first and laugh before we toss it in the trash, in contrast to the direct route). Our company is 20% IT, and 50% of them are "programmers" (and we're currently trying to hire more). Of that lot, there are only two of us who have *any* type of degree, although we both put ourselves through school doing the work (and neither of us are "programmers")
If guidance counselors knew the first thing about the real world and the job market, they wouldn't still be crappy guidance counselors. I used to work at the University, I know what goes on there. I spent my time in the C-Sci department, although admittedly I did sleep through most of it. But a C-Sci degree teaches you only one thing, how to survive in the academic computer world. Now there may be schools out there with decent departments that graduate cluefull students. In fact, I must infer that they exist. It's just that I've never seen one, nor met anyone so blessed. But learning the ins and outs of the Minix kernel means jack when accounting wants a custom module to track the new 401k deferrals, or the boss wants to merge the shipping and sales applications, and sell online.
Most college grads don't want to hear this. The guidance folks and the industry reps (a la MS) have been sitting around, passing the hashpipe and telling you all that as soon as you graduate you'll make six figures and get eight months vacation. WRONG! You have to start at the bottom and work your way up. While I understand that the American dream is a shortcut to wealth and prosperity, you need to wake up. Some of us put at least a decade into crummy jobs. I get punks in here all the time who want my job without working for it.
Forget wasting time on certifications. And since you've already wasted four or more years in the chair at school, you're four years behind. Go out and get a job, any job, that pays anything. Some of us didn't own cars when we started, lived in the ghetto, and ate potato(e)s. If in five years you still can't manage to find a decent job, then come and cry to slashdot about how unfair life is.
I'm sure there'll be several people exagerating their accomplishments and saying "not so, I got X job right out of school." To them I say, "Congratulations, I hope you appreciate it. Consider yourself lucky."
With the economy doing the slow spiral down the bowl, geeks are a dime a dozen. Heck, I feel bad for the last guy we hired. He relocated from Houston to get the job, and he gets paid *half* what I do. Dude works in a gas station to augment his income! Right now is pretty much the time that the pointy haired ones are bending the IT folks over the desks in the NOC. It's all in the timing, and unfortunately, yours sucks.
Sorry dude. Wish there was better news. But if I had the ultimate control over time and space to grant all graduates great jobs, I sure as hell wouldn't be sitting around wanking on slashdot...
You have your whole life ahead of you to work. Take a year off and go screw around in Europe or Africa. Actually learn something before you begin your education.
Then when you're ready, work and go to school. If you can weasel a job out of the University, do it! They're usually really flexible on the hours, and if you can lodge yourself in there, you might parlay it into a position when you eventually graduate. The behemouth of higher education is one of the last few bastions of total unreality left on the planet: where pay is good, vacation plentiful, actual work scarce, and they throw in a fresh steady stream of co-eds as icing. I thoroughly beat myself about the head and neck on a regular basis for leaving.
So many people want to jump right into being the BOFH without working their way up the ladder. In the few sober hours you will have during your college years (I highly recommend the balcony beer bong, nothing like 10 feet of pressure head to prime the pump), you need to follow the proper career development path...
1) Telephone Technical support...
You need to spend at least six months to a year at a dead end job doing end user technical support via phone, preferably for the lowest price ISP in your area. This is important, because here is where you'll develop your disdain for the public. Do not progress further until your patience for stupid people is acceptably low, and you weep for the future on a daily basis. When you find yourself hitting the mute button to laugh at customers, you are on your way. When you no longer use the mute button, and just laugh directly at them, you are ready to move up the next rung.
2) PC Support Tech at a small company...
This is an important step, because this is where you really learn to loathe Microsoft and Novell. You can't really be the BOFH unless you develop the proper sneer to deliver to Windows users that communicates your contempt for their total lack of clue. This job will also allow you to hone your application of the cluestick. Resist the temptation to substitute a Jose Canseco bat, however, as advancement within the Penal System requires a skillset not often compatible with that of a SysAdmin. Work on the fine motor control required to hit the "reset" button, and the muscle memory required to tell the users to reboot. This will be important later, when you will be able to taunt them with the uptime of your non-MS workstation. The key lesson to learn here is that most users have difficulty chewing gum, much less walking and doing so. When you fully see the irony in "Plug-and-Play" it is time.
3) Network Admin at a small to medium company...
This is the crucial step, the one that makes or breaks you. Try to find a company that has at least one "Developer" or "Programmer" on staff. This is important, because you need to learn that intellegence, wisdom, and common sense do not often travel together. Remember to concentrate on the angle of your knuckles to improve the sting of your "Programmer B*#$^Slap." A favorite passtime here will be playing "file permissions bingo." Allow users to create and become comfortable with their usual "Full Control" (you're still in MS land) defaults, and then slowly start to contract them. You'll soon realize what complete crap VMS, errr, WinNT is, and you'll begin to fine tune the Linux/BSD skills while trying to migrate the environment. When you have managed to get them completely onto a Linux based solution, quit. But go back two weeks later and get hired as a consultant to run the thing for 10 times the money. Smile as you bend them over, to make up for the many times you found yourself facedown on the counter. Bonus points for extracting worthless certifications at company expense.
4) Network/Sys Admin for medium to large company...
These are often considered "The Underground" years. Most large companies this size have tons of stupid policies, and your mission in life is to skirt them. About now you'll realize that binge drinking isn't as fun as you once thought, and it might be time to start looking for permanent female companionship. WARNING: Do not seek at your place of employement! You wouldn't want to date an IT type person anyway, and to date a luser will only lead to either suicide, or a visit to the aforementioned Big House. Find the one guy who wrote the accounting package in Cobol fifteen years ago, and apprentice yourself to him. Beware of the AS/400, it will only end in tears. Continue to milk the small company, and see if you can't add a few more to the hit list. Keep this position until 5) is available.
5) The last suit you'll ever wear, Government SysAdmin...
The ultimate goal of any BOFH is of course, to aspire to government service. A University is preferable (see above), but any large agency is ripe. Resist the urge to enter management at 4). Managers are an illusion, IT Managers doubly so. The major problem with being a manager is the mandatory lobotomy, and the surgery to implant the telegraph pole is discomforting. Government agencies tend to run outdated platforms that only a chosen few actually understand. Try and find a spot where your manager actually thinks he/she understands the system. It makes life much easier if you don't have to develop their misconceptions, but can use those already built in. Spend your time at work trying to hack the driver for that crate of wireless networking cards you bought off ebay for $10. It's amazing how much quality life you can have when you get paid to do nothing. Continue to run your side business as a contract admin. Bonus points for getting a contract in the office where you work (double dipping is a civil servants moral obligation: see Office, Post).
6) Teach...
This also might be considered the terminus branch at any point above. Now that your personality is properly molded into the true BOFH, you are ready imbue those ideals to the future generation. The rule bending experience will come in handy for dealing with pesky administrators. Oh yeah, and you get all summer off, too!
If you fail to find the humor above, you should reconsider your occupational choice. If you've actually managed to read this far, you are either perfectly suited to be a SysAdmin, or hold one of the above mentioned government jobs!
Doh, I totally missed the point, don't worry, I've liberally applied the cluestick about my head and neck. Time delay as the space mission, not the tether issues ROV's have.
Self-LART. Well, there isn't any way short of using some tachyon nonsense to "beat" the time delay, so you just have to end run around it.
I really don't think there'd be any way to get a decent enough AI type system to react properly, so I'd probably say they're going to have to drop back to the old "batch command" standby. Of course, any current at all will really screw you here, but since these little guys can't really deal with appreciable current anyway, I doubt it matters. Another issue will be with bouyancy. In order to pull this off, the rig is going to need to be neutral, but who can tell what the density of the liquid is going to be.
After having seen these units in action, I don't think they're ready for that kind of prime time yet. But, when they head them off to the Bismarck next year, that's going to rock!
The bots aren't tethered to the surface, they're each tethered to a submersible via a spool of a biodegradable fiber optic. Delay is minimal. And each bot has two cameras, and three lights (I think I remember that correctly). A standard flood, a spot, and a hot spot linked to the vertically panning camera. The two pilots are in different manned submersibles, but they communicate via UQC. See my other post for more info.
Cool. Not to make everyone else too jealous, but I was recently at a presentation by Mike and Jim Cameron about this project. Mike gave about a short presentation about the development of the ROV, and then Jim gave a much longer one about the missions. How cool is it that one of the project paramaters is that the ROV has to be small enough to fit in a "B" deck window? One of the many great quotes of the evening from Jim was "I paid for these guys, so I drove mine on every dive. Mike had to share."
The footage is *AMAZING*. There are stained glass windows completely intact. In one stateroom, there's a water pitcher sitting on a shelf above a water glass still standing upright on a vanity. Still upright!!! After the sinking and the impact! Jim talked about how important it was to have 2 units, so that there could be "characters" in the shots. Oh, and not to ruin anything, but Bill Paxton is in on the project. The quote went something like "I'm making Bill do for real what he pretended to do in the movie"
At one point they had a battery failure on one of the units due to a manufacturer's defect. So they rigged up a harpoon to the other, and went in and rescued it. It was an amazing feat, and they surfaced absolutely elated. But their victory was short lived, for the date of the rescue was 11 September.
At several points during the presentation the audience broke into applause at the sheer grandeur of the footage. I can't wait to see the finished project, especially after they get some of the stuff enhanced and cleaned up. There were 12 dives on Titanic, 9 of them filming missions. And trust me on this one guys, you *must* see this film. Even if you aren't into wrecks, it will blow your mind.
I never played Zork, but isn't just a repackaged version of the Dungeon game we used to play? I remember playing Dungeon for *ever* when I was a kid on the local university's VAX. Lucky me, the next door neighbor's dad was the head of IT there. We'd drag an extension cord and a phone extension out to the poolside, and plug in the old amberscreen terminal, dial the rotary modem, jam it in the audiocoupler modem, and play at a whopping 300 baud. Ah the joy of youth!
Anyone ever figure out how to hatch the jeweled bird out of egg without breaking it?
I think that the Linux "BSD Games" collection has a version of Dungeon in it.
UugaBuuga
On my dual boot system, sometimes I have to wait while the cursor blinks in the upper left hand corner of the screen for several minutes. I think Windoze is doing something stupid with the NIC/network.
Now if we could just get rid of MS Project, I wouldn't need their OS at all:-)
I've had my DSL from mother PacBell since it first became available in my area. In fact, mine was the test CO, and I was like the fifth non-SBC employee to get it. Of course, the moron they sent to my house had to slapped, and I did the install myself (the 66 block in my garage through him. I think the patch panel above it might have killed him:-). Luckily they waived the install fee (they should have paid me for all the free training.)
Anyway, I haven't had a complaint except that their technical support sucks! The other day I wanted to do something Usenet (not deja), and they've password protected their server. Fine. But when I emailed the stinking address it bounced. Grrrr.
And since then it's become a nightmare to try and get the service. Unless you want to cough up some serious cash for "static" addresses (which I get for the lowest base price, man I love getting in early), you get this PPPoE b*st*rdization "dial up" system. What moron thought this up???
And, PB and SBC aren't responsible for the install anymore. They've created/sub'd the actual install to some company called ASI. One of the VPs here wanted DSL, so through some unfortunate circumstances I ended up responsible for it (The guy I assigned it to flaked, lucky me).
Anyway, it took five months to actually get it in and working, involving well over 75 hours of my time on the phone (logged it all). There was a silver lining though, I'm much better at freecell and minesweeper (is that all MS Windows is good for?). Also, multiple problems involving the multiple lines into his place resulted in no record of the circuit at PB, so he doesn't get billed:-) I figure in about five years we'll break even for all the time invested:-)
So if you install it yourself, everything should be fine. If you are really feeling lucky and let the installer touch your computer, I shall not shed a tear for you. Remember, I told you so.
Don't get super happy about this ruling quite yet, Ticketmaster is re-filing. The judge dropped their current case, but gave them direction for what he would accept, and allow to be tried. The problem the judge stated is that merely providing a link to the License Agreement isn't satisfactory. The judge required Ticketmaster to "force" visitors to view the agreement prior to viewing the information. Every notice that you have to say "I agree" before most software packages will install. Same idea here. Most websites have an "AUP" or "License Agreement" addressing the proper use of the information present on the site, but it's only a link. You aren't "forced" to say "I agree" every time you click. Boy would that suck! But it may come down to that. Hopefully another judge will overturn this part of the ruling (because people will always try to legally protect their piece of the pie, and I'd hate to have to constantly be clicking the stinking Javascript pop-up boxes anytime I wanted to look at something). What tickets.com was doing was in direct violation of the stated acceptable use policy on the ticketmaster site. But the judge ruled that becuase users were not "required" to view the agreement, it wasn't enforcable. The judge didn't say that the policy was invalid. In fact, don't be surprised when this case makes it up to the Supreme Court, and it isn't about Ticketmaster or Tickets.com, it's about the enforcement of "Acceptable Use". Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of Ticketmaster in any form. In fact, I was in a panel discussion last month at the Concert Industry Consortium conference, and the mediator had to constantly reign in the "Ticketmaster bashing" (as fun as it was). I kinda felt bad for the Ticketmaster rep, she really took it in the shorts. But hey, work for the Microsoft of the concert industry, and what do you expect. There are those of us who make our living by supplying information to the masses. We don't charge the users, we charge companies who want a shot at the eyeballs. It's the current 'Net model. The current status quo is this: an established data gathering organization concentrates the data into one location for private public use, and tons of little Internet start-ups mine their site and try to compete for the eyeballs, without doing any real work. Sound familiar? There's a word for this, it's *parasite*. While the vast majority of the net works in *symbiotic* relationships (I link to you, you to me, and we all share and gain), there are several of these leeches around, sucking off someone elses hard work. The real problem is, that if enough parasites attack a host, the host dies. As do the parasites. Then we all lose, because no-one else will spend the money to develop the data gathering infrastructure, and the information is scattered. It's still out there, but just all over the place, and not of much use to anyone. So keep information free. But leave the credit intact. We need those page views to keep the information flowing. Linking, even 'deep linking' isn't what this is all about. It's about money. If you want to prevent linking, use.htaccess, or even mod_rewrite to filter all kinds of goodies (Assuming you use Apache, and at the traffic levels we're talking about it's a must;ob ). But don't lump data mining in with linking. They are two different animals. One good. One evil. My 2 cents... UugaBuuga If Amway is so great, why do they try so hard not to say the name? And now their online. Aaaack!!!
Slashdot Mirror
So I'll probably side step it as well. OK, maybe just a few rants...
More than your lack of certifications, (and although most slashdotters will probably have kittens at this statement) your problem is your degree. I should preface this by saying that I have a degree and change in a natural science, and that I was only a few units short of C-Sci degree. But in my little corner of the world, a C-Sci degree on the resume is a direct ticket into the trashcan. Sorry folks, rant all you want, but that's the way it is in almost every company I have worked with and for. We even give an MIS degree more weight (just enough to read it first and laugh before we toss it in the trash, in contrast to the direct route). Our company is 20% IT, and 50% of them are "programmers" (and we're currently trying to hire more). Of that lot, there are only two of us who have *any* type of degree, although we both put ourselves through school doing the work (and neither of us are "programmers")
If guidance counselors knew the first thing about the real world and the job market, they wouldn't still be crappy guidance counselors. I used to work at the University, I know what goes on there. I spent my time in the C-Sci department, although admittedly I did sleep through most of it. But a C-Sci degree teaches you only one thing, how to survive in the academic computer world. Now there may be schools out there with decent departments that graduate cluefull students. In fact, I must infer that they exist. It's just that I've never seen one, nor met anyone so blessed. But learning the ins and outs of the Minix kernel means jack when accounting wants a custom module to track the new 401k deferrals, or the boss wants to merge the shipping and sales applications, and sell online.
Most college grads don't want to hear this. The guidance folks and the industry reps (a la MS) have been sitting around, passing the hashpipe and telling you all that as soon as you graduate you'll make six figures and get eight months vacation. WRONG! You have to start at the bottom and work your way up. While I understand that the American dream is a shortcut to wealth and prosperity, you need to wake up. Some of us put at least a decade into crummy jobs. I get punks in here all the time who want my job without working for it.
Forget wasting time on certifications. And since you've already wasted four or more years in the chair at school, you're four years behind. Go out and get a job, any job, that pays anything. Some of us didn't own cars when we started, lived in the ghetto, and ate potato(e)s. If in five years you still can't manage to find a decent job, then come and cry to slashdot about how unfair life is.
I'm sure there'll be several people exagerating their accomplishments and saying "not so, I got X job right out of school." To them I say, "Congratulations, I hope you appreciate it. Consider yourself lucky."
With the economy doing the slow spiral down the bowl, geeks are a dime a dozen. Heck, I feel bad for the last guy we hired. He relocated from Houston to get the job, and he gets paid *half* what I do. Dude works in a gas station to augment his income! Right now is pretty much the time that the pointy haired ones are bending the IT folks over the desks in the NOC. It's all in the timing, and unfortunately, yours sucks.
Sorry dude. Wish there was better news. But if I had the ultimate control over time and space to grant all graduates great jobs, I sure as hell wouldn't be sitting around wanking on slashdot...
Then when you're ready, work and go to school. If you can weasel a job out of the University, do it! They're usually really flexible on the hours, and if you can lodge yourself in there, you might parlay it into a position when you eventually graduate. The behemouth of higher education is one of the last few bastions of total unreality left on the planet: where pay is good, vacation plentiful, actual work scarce, and they throw in a fresh steady stream of co-eds as icing. I thoroughly beat myself about the head and neck on a regular basis for leaving.
So many people want to jump right into being the BOFH without working their way up the ladder. In the few sober hours you will have during your college years (I highly recommend the balcony beer bong, nothing like 10 feet of pressure head to prime the pump), you need to follow the proper career development path...
You need to spend at least six months to a year at a dead end job doing end user technical support via phone, preferably for the lowest price ISP in your area. This is important, because here is where you'll develop your disdain for the public. Do not progress further until your patience for stupid people is acceptably low, and you weep for the future on a daily basis. When you find yourself hitting the mute button to laugh at customers, you are on your way. When you no longer use the mute button, and just laugh directly at them, you are ready to move up the next rung.
This is an important step, because this is where you really learn to loathe Microsoft and Novell. You can't really be the BOFH unless you develop the proper sneer to deliver to Windows users that communicates your contempt for their total lack of clue. This job will also allow you to hone your application of the cluestick. Resist the temptation to substitute a Jose Canseco bat, however, as advancement within the Penal System requires a skillset not often compatible with that of a SysAdmin. Work on the fine motor control required to hit the "reset" button, and the muscle memory required to tell the users to reboot. This will be important later, when you will be able to taunt them with the uptime of your non-MS workstation. The key lesson to learn here is that most users have difficulty chewing gum, much less walking and doing so. When you fully see the irony in "Plug-and-Play" it is time.
This is the crucial step, the one that makes or breaks you. Try to find a company that has at least one "Developer" or "Programmer" on staff. This is important, because you need to learn that intellegence, wisdom, and common sense do not often travel together. Remember to concentrate on the angle of your knuckles to improve the sting of your "Programmer B*#$^Slap." A favorite passtime here will be playing "file permissions bingo." Allow users to create and become comfortable with their usual "Full Control" (you're still in MS land) defaults, and then slowly start to contract them. You'll soon realize what complete crap VMS, errr, WinNT is, and you'll begin to fine tune the Linux/BSD skills while trying to migrate the environment. When you have managed to get them completely onto a Linux based solution, quit. But go back two weeks later and get hired as a consultant to run the thing for 10 times the money. Smile as you bend them over, to make up for the many times you found yourself facedown on the counter. Bonus points for extracting worthless certifications at company expense.
These are often considered "The Underground" years. Most large companies this size have tons of stupid policies, and your mission in life is to skirt them. About now you'll realize that binge drinking isn't as fun as you once thought, and it might be time to start looking for permanent female companionship. WARNING: Do not seek at your place of employement! You wouldn't want to date an IT type person anyway, and to date a luser will only lead to either suicide, or a visit to the aforementioned Big House. Find the one guy who wrote the accounting package in Cobol fifteen years ago, and apprentice yourself to him. Beware of the AS/400, it will only end in tears. Continue to milk the small company, and see if you can't add a few more to the hit list. Keep this position until 5) is available.
The ultimate goal of any BOFH is of course, to aspire to government service. A University is preferable (see above), but any large agency is ripe. Resist the urge to enter management at 4). Managers are an illusion, IT Managers doubly so. The major problem with being a manager is the mandatory lobotomy, and the surgery to implant the telegraph pole is discomforting. Government agencies tend to run outdated platforms that only a chosen few actually understand. Try and find a spot where your manager actually thinks he/she understands the system. It makes life much easier if you don't have to develop their misconceptions, but can use those already built in. Spend your time at work trying to hack the driver for that crate of wireless networking cards you bought off ebay for $10. It's amazing how much quality life you can have when you get paid to do nothing. Continue to run your side business as a contract admin. Bonus points for getting a contract in the office where you work (double dipping is a civil servants moral obligation: see Office, Post).
This also might be considered the terminus branch at any point above. Now that your personality is properly molded into the true BOFH, you are ready imbue those ideals to the future generation. The rule bending experience will come in handy for dealing with pesky administrators. Oh yeah, and you get all summer off, too!
If you fail to find the humor above, you should reconsider your occupational choice. If you've actually managed to read this far, you are either perfectly suited to be a SysAdmin, or hold one of the above mentioned government jobs!
Doh, I totally missed the point, don't worry, I've liberally applied the cluestick about my head and neck. Time delay as the space mission, not the tether issues ROV's have.
Self-LART. Well, there isn't any way short of using some tachyon nonsense to "beat" the time delay, so you just have to end run around it.
I really don't think there'd be any way to get a decent enough AI type system to react properly, so I'd probably say they're going to have to drop back to the old "batch command" standby. Of course, any current at all will really screw you here, but since these little guys can't really deal with appreciable current anyway, I doubt it matters. Another issue will be with bouyancy. In order to pull this off, the rig is going to need to be neutral, but who can tell what the density of the liquid is going to be.
After having seen these units in action, I don't think they're ready for that kind of prime time yet. But, when they head them off to the Bismarck next year, that's going to rock!
The bots aren't tethered to the surface, they're each tethered to a submersible via a spool of a biodegradable fiber optic. Delay is minimal. And each bot has two cameras, and three lights (I think I remember that correctly). A standard flood, a spot, and a hot spot linked to the vertically panning camera. The two pilots are in different manned submersibles, but they communicate via UQC. See my other post for more info.
Cool. Not to make everyone else too jealous, but I was recently at a presentation by Mike and Jim Cameron about this project. Mike gave about a short presentation about the development of the ROV, and then Jim gave a much longer one about the missions. How cool is it that one of the project paramaters is that the ROV has to be small enough to fit in a "B" deck window? One of the many great quotes of the evening from Jim was "I paid for these guys, so I drove mine on every dive. Mike had to share."
The footage is *AMAZING*. There are stained glass windows completely intact. In one stateroom, there's a water pitcher sitting on a shelf above a water glass still standing upright on a vanity. Still upright!!! After the sinking and the impact! Jim talked about how important it was to have 2 units, so that there could be "characters" in the shots. Oh, and not to ruin anything, but Bill Paxton is in on the project. The quote went something like "I'm making Bill do for real what he pretended to do in the movie"
At one point they had a battery failure on one of the units due to a manufacturer's defect. So they rigged up a harpoon to the other, and went in and rescued it. It was an amazing feat, and they surfaced absolutely elated. But their victory was short lived, for the date of the rescue was 11 September.
At several points during the presentation the audience broke into applause at the sheer grandeur of the footage. I can't wait to see the finished project, especially after they get some of the stuff enhanced and cleaned up. There were 12 dives on Titanic, 9 of them filming missions. And trust me on this one guys, you *must* see this film. Even if you aren't into wrecks, it will blow your mind.
I never played Zork, but isn't just a repackaged version of the Dungeon game we used to play? I remember playing Dungeon for *ever* when I was a kid on the local university's VAX. Lucky me, the next door neighbor's dad was the head of IT there. We'd drag an extension cord and a phone extension out to the poolside, and plug in the old amberscreen terminal, dial the rotary modem, jam it in the audiocoupler modem, and play at a whopping 300 baud. Ah the joy of youth! Anyone ever figure out how to hatch the jeweled bird out of egg without breaking it? I think that the Linux "BSD Games" collection has a version of Dungeon in it. UugaBuuga
On my dual boot system, sometimes I have to wait while the cursor blinks in the upper left hand corner of the screen for several minutes. I think Windoze is doing something stupid with the NIC/network. Now if we could just get rid of MS Project, I wouldn't need their OS at all :-)
I've had my DSL from mother PacBell since it first became available in my area. In fact, mine was the test CO, and I was like the fifth non-SBC employee to get it. Of course, the moron they sent to my house had to slapped, and I did the install myself (the 66 block in my garage through him. I think the patch panel above it might have killed him :-). Luckily they waived the install fee (they should have paid me for all the free training.)
:-) I figure in about five years we'll break even for all the time invested :-)
Anyway, I haven't had a complaint except that their technical support sucks! The other day I wanted to do something Usenet (not deja), and they've password protected their server. Fine. But when I emailed the stinking address it bounced. Grrrr.
And since then it's become a nightmare to try and get the service. Unless you want to cough up some serious cash for "static" addresses (which I get for the lowest base price, man I love getting in early), you get this PPPoE b*st*rdization "dial up" system. What moron thought this up???
And, PB and SBC aren't responsible for the install anymore. They've created/sub'd the actual install to some company called ASI. One of the VPs here wanted DSL, so through some unfortunate circumstances I ended up responsible for it (The guy I assigned it to flaked, lucky me).
Anyway, it took five months to actually get it in and working, involving well over 75 hours of my time on the phone (logged it all). There was a silver lining though, I'm much better at freecell and minesweeper (is that all MS Windows is good for?). Also, multiple problems involving the multiple lines into his place resulted in no record of the circuit at PB, so he doesn't get billed
So if you install it yourself, everything should be fine. If you are really feeling lucky and let the installer touch your computer, I shall not shed a tear for you. Remember, I told you so.
I believe the third is in the possession of Mick Jager. He's really into this type of stuff.
Don't get super happy about this ruling quite yet, Ticketmaster is re-filing. The judge dropped their current case, but gave them direction for what he would accept, and allow to be tried. The problem the judge stated is that merely providing a link to the License Agreement isn't satisfactory. The judge required Ticketmaster to "force" visitors to view the agreement prior to viewing the information. Every notice that you have to say "I agree" before most software packages will install. Same idea here. Most websites have an "AUP" or "License Agreement" addressing the proper use of the information present on the site, but it's only a link. You aren't "forced" to say "I agree" every time you click. Boy would that suck! But it may come down to that. Hopefully another judge will overturn this part of the ruling (because people will always try to legally protect their piece of the pie, and I'd hate to have to constantly be clicking the stinking Javascript pop-up boxes anytime I wanted to look at something). What tickets.com was doing was in direct violation of the stated acceptable use policy on the ticketmaster site. But the judge ruled that becuase users were not "required" to view the agreement, it wasn't enforcable. The judge didn't say that the policy was invalid. In fact, don't be surprised when this case makes it up to the Supreme Court, and it isn't about Ticketmaster or Tickets.com, it's about the enforcement of "Acceptable Use". Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of Ticketmaster in any form. In fact, I was in a panel discussion last month at the Concert Industry Consortium conference, and the mediator had to constantly reign in the "Ticketmaster bashing" (as fun as it was). I kinda felt bad for the Ticketmaster rep, she really took it in the shorts. But hey, work for the Microsoft of the concert industry, and what do you expect. There are those of us who make our living by supplying information to the masses. We don't charge the users, we charge companies who want a shot at the eyeballs. It's the current 'Net model. The current status quo is this: an established data gathering organization concentrates the data into one location for private public use, and tons of little Internet start-ups mine their site and try to compete for the eyeballs, without doing any real work. Sound familiar? There's a word for this, it's *parasite*. While the vast majority of the net works in *symbiotic* relationships (I link to you, you to me, and we all share and gain), there are several of these leeches around, sucking off someone elses hard work. The real problem is, that if enough parasites attack a host, the host dies. As do the parasites. Then we all lose, because no-one else will spend the money to develop the data gathering infrastructure, and the information is scattered. It's still out there, but just all over the place, and not of much use to anyone. So keep information free. But leave the credit intact. We need those page views to keep the information flowing. Linking, even 'deep linking' isn't what this is all about. It's about money. If you want to prevent linking, use .htaccess, or even mod_rewrite to filter all kinds of goodies (Assuming you use Apache, and at the traffic levels we're talking about it's a must ;ob ). But don't lump data mining in with linking. They are two different animals. One good. One evil. My 2 cents... UugaBuuga If Amway is so great, why do they try so hard not to say the name? And now their online. Aaaack!!!