Performance - It's a lot slower than MS Office, specially on Linux.
Well, I don't have MS Office let alone Windows on this machine for comparison yet the RC1 release of OpenOffice 1.1 is snappy -- even without any pre-loading tricks.
I'd rather waut for the above orgs to get screwed paying for licenses and Service Packs, yet getting inferior code - and switching to Linux, after getting wiser by their own personal experiences.
Right -- like that will ever happen!
(No responses please from the humor impared. Thank you.)
It's a lousy position to be in, because you're never going to make much, and if the land's owner finds something better to do with the land, you're history.
A practical example of this is Watson, the product mentioned above, which did very nicely, thank you, on the Macintosh, until the owner of the land brought out Sherlock, a very nice program that did many of the same things.
Going with that analogy in a competitive environment, if you make a useful widget and someone else makes an improved version...your version has to change or it is history. The Linux and open source worlds are also impacted by this -- Example: The current switch to ALSA from OSS. Part of the OSS to ALSA switch is philosophical, though ALSA does have some damn nice features.
The main difference in the non-competitive and competitive worlds is that since the 'land' is not owned the best widget can be chosen -- though not necessarily. Either way, the results can be similar; new app comes along and old app turns into worm food.
That said, the effects are quite different in a non-competitive world; I used to work for a company that was hit heavily when Microsoft bundled an acceptable replacement of my old company's utility. Sure, if MS didn't do it then someone else could have done it later...though the new commer would have to compete. Microsoft didn't have to...so the company went from ~100 down to ~25 in the space of a year. I've heard it's a 2 person group now providing another set of tools.
I do really hope there will be more introductory papers for beginners like this one, to which I could point people before another time I answer their question: "What computer should I buy?"
That's simple; "What computer were you planning on buying?"
I don't know your experience, though this is mine;
I've put computers together for people, I've given them advice, I've even given them a store plus model name plus a few suggestions. I've warned people off of buying a brand, and told them that there are problems with specific hardware that they have thier eye on. All good stuff...none of it aimed toward an agenda...all focusing on what they said they want to do with a specific budget...and they always end up buying what they wanted in the first place or (if I put it together) drooling over the machine they really wanted.
There is no other answer. Unfortunately, the same thing often applies in business though if the managers have good computers they tend to ignore what you do with the rest of the systems.
I should have also said that a number of contracts that one might expect would be internal government projects have more and more been bid out to private contractors.
Yep, no matter how impressive it looks, there's only so much you can do with Powerpoint.
All kidding aside, there are only so many good programmers and associated professionals. If a government agency wants the good ones, chances are they're going to have to either lure them in, train them from the inside, or buy off the rack; contractors.
I should have also said that a number of contracts that one might expect would be internal government projects have more and more been bid out to private contractors.
Yep, no matter how impressive it looks, there's only so much you can do with Powerpoint.
Folks- 100BaseT spec only allows for ONE INCH of untwisted wire on the entire cable, so don't go making really long untwisted leaders into the connectors. It's a pain to get the hang of it and getting 'em all lined up right, but it needs to be done properly!
The method you recommend is a pain because you're doing it wrong! (It's also something I would have recommended a few years ago when many of my cables would not work or work well.)
At that time, I met a phone installer. After going through cable after cable of my own tedious and exact cables, I shut up and watched him. The first thing he did was sheer off about 6 inches of the cover, using the pull string to slit it open. Then, pulling each wire up like hair on a doll, he moved each into position and started to align them, dancing the wires around each other only as necessary. Only at the last moment did he pull all the wires together and snip them off before putting a connector on and crimping.
This takes ~45 seconds if you're slow, and ~10 seconds if you're at the level of the phone installer I mentioned. The resulting cable ends that always work. To learn this method takes a hell of a lot less practice.
If you try this method and it does not work, find someone who knows what they are doing and watch them!
If you want to make something that works just like the original, you copy much of the bad behavior as well as the good. How these defects are implemented, though, is up to the developers though they have to duplicate them. See Wine as an example.
Besides, HP is very serious about Linux - especially the people from Compaq side, which grok the "industry standard" thing. Some factions at HP will enthusiastically sell HP-UX to any moron that is buying, though. Wanna be one of those?
Hey, you talk as if my, my manager's, the IT staff, the IT staff's manager's,... input was the deciding factor. We (as the project group; design, development, deployment, maintenance, and long-term management) would agree with you. The home office gives final signoff, though. They said 'We are HP and Microsoft partners...we won't be using Linux'. Calling them morons is kinda missing the point; they value the HP and MS partnerships. Nothing else is under discussion for the current project.
Or, where I am now the techs and managers hear this;
On-Site: We'll save $300,000 if we use Linux instead of HPUX and Windows on the servers.
Home office: You will use HPUX and Windows.
On-Site: Why? It's more expensive!
Home office: We are Microsoft and HP partners. We will not be using Linux.
That said, we're using Linux after the main installation (with Windows and HPUX) goes in. Most of the cost savings and support benifits are lost, though, since the budget has been misspent already.
Look, at first glance such schemes offer ways to simply cashflow issues, in the management context, and defer technical decisions to a known quantity, from a technical point of view. But looking at the wider picture, you're pretty much putting your testicles into a vice with someone who really has little reason to concern themselves with your needs holding the vice handle.
I didn't see where the original question asked about purchasing more of a contracting company's services. When I first read it, it looked like the question was how to find more contracting work (since they already do some contracting work).
Contractors -- and hiring more employees -- serves a purpose. Personally -- {BSEG} -- I neither have enough time in the day or knowledge to be capable of doing everything. Anyone who says they can do it all don't have much to do, are lying, or just inexperienced.
If you can maintain a network, plus design-document-&-code new software, maintain the old stuff, go to management meetings for half the day, *and* have time to learn new skills...well, you're not spending your work hours on your core job (and you probably spend your non-work hours on excessive amounts of work). You probably are spread so thin that you need help...and even if you could figure it all out, why bother when someone else can do a better job?
That said, if you hire anyone -- under a contract or as an employee -- and nobody on your side is interested in exactly how the new hire or contracor get things done...well, don't expect precision.
As someone who has exclusively worked on contracts for the past 10 years, on both sides of the contract, the good ones suceed because *both* sides are honest, interested, and professional.
Those expecting an Us-vs-Them relationship tend to get it. Those who play the blame game encourage finger pointing -- and promoting the worst kind of back stabbers. Those who won't follow through and cleanly hold the other teams accountable -- and suck it up when at fault -- also have problems.
That said, often bad money decisions made early on can impact the whole project and force people into doing bad things. (Example: The project I'm currently on has no single requirements document and the end customer doesn't care. Instead, the customer pokes through trashcans for potential security breaches instead of checking to see if the new applications and servers work as they should. No focus, lots of mistrust, and the sad thing is that if things were planned a little differently early on these issues would be largely eliminated. (Yes, checking trashcans and other physical areas for security breaches is a good idea on many projects.))
The 3100 is similar in many ways to the A70. I don't think either is superior to the other, though there are differences. For me, a non-photo geek, the Nikon was the better choice. For a real avid photographer, the A70 with it's extensive manual controls is a better choice.
- Limited content version: Pay and get added binaries that include more levels, features, tools, networking, or special support (forums, module trading area)
We could incorperate linux kernel code in the genome sequence but we may pick the wrong lines and get sued by SCO.
Didn't you hear? SCO is suing God for patent infringement on the original caffeinated version. They've already tracked Him down and expect Him to pay real soon. You'd be amazed where He was found, says a SCO spokesman, but they won't provide details because...well, no details. Once God caves in, they plan to push other infringement suits; Nestle, Starbucks, and that terrorist funded coffee chain with a moose as it's logo were mentioned.
Lastly, camera-wise, I personally recommend the Canon Powershot A40. It can be had for about $200 now. It is "just" a 2 megapixel camera. However, the output is very nice for consumer level camera.
The Canon A70 just dropped to $300. It's 3MP and quite nice. Personally, I decided to get a Nikon Coolpix 3100 since I'm a geek just not a photo geek. It uses CF cards, like the Canon, and offers many nice automatic modes...yet, if you like to tell your camera what to do instead of it figuring it out for you, the Canon A70 is a good choice. Now, try and find one!
Thanks for the URL. To answer: Nope, I haven't tried and till now I wasn't too curious. I half expect that using SMS from an AT&T network will give different results from using it from another network. (Yep, it shouldn't matter...yet, not being able to turn off annoying options is also strange and smacks of marketers forcing 'features'.)
My AT&T wireless reps kept tellinig me all sorts of stuff that was false, so make sure you validate their claims.
I'm not surprised. Can't get a consistant answer out of them for other questions I've asked. The stunning thing is that each person is confident of the (often conflicting) answer they give.
I started to recieve SMS spam on my AT&T phone. Very annoying.
After some frustrating attempts to figure out how to disable it, even being told by customer service that it "can't be turned off", I marched in to an AT&T mobile store and demanded _they_ turn it off. A smile, a nod, and a few keystrokes later they said they turned SMS off for me.
Customer service still says it's enabled on my phone and "can't" be disabled...yet, I've seen no more spams.
It's frustrating how many viruses Windows keeps getting slammed with.
Not for me. After someone brought a contaminated laptop in yet again and caused the IT staff here to spend 50+ hours cleaning up the mess across the whole network, I was told "You, don't boot your laptop - I don't want it on the network".
While I did boot into W2K about a week ago, my daily desktop is KDE 3 running on Linux. When I pointed this out, the IT manager said "OK, use Linux just don't boot into Windows." {BSEG}
The only thing that irks me is that I can't easily check the Windows partition for the virus (no floppy drive) without booting it and my last full backup was just before the virus was noticed. Bottom line: I don't trust a virus detector/remover to remove a virus that got there before it did.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I don't have MS Office let alone Windows on this machine for comparison yet the RC1 release of OpenOffice 1.1 is snappy -- even without any pre-loading tricks.
(Snappy = 1-2 seconds to load on a Celeron 1.8.)
German, French, and (primarily) English...like CeBit.
Seriously, though, I wouldn't worry about that for a while, though the alternate languages (French and English) will probably grow as LinuxTag does.
Right -- like that will ever happen!
(No responses please from the humor impared. Thank you.)
A practical example of this is Watson, the product mentioned above, which did very nicely, thank you, on the Macintosh, until the owner of the land brought out Sherlock, a very nice program that did many of the same things.
Going with that analogy in a competitive environment, if you make a useful widget and someone else makes an improved version...your version has to change or it is history. The Linux and open source worlds are also impacted by this -- Example: The current switch to ALSA from OSS. Part of the OSS to ALSA switch is philosophical, though ALSA does have some damn nice features.
The main difference in the non-competitive and competitive worlds is that since the 'land' is not owned the best widget can be chosen -- though not necessarily. Either way, the results can be similar; new app comes along and old app turns into worm food.
That said, the effects are quite different in a non-competitive world; I used to work for a company that was hit heavily when Microsoft bundled an acceptable replacement of my old company's utility. Sure, if MS didn't do it then someone else could have done it later...though the new commer would have to compete. Microsoft didn't have to...so the company went from ~100 down to ~25 in the space of a year. I've heard it's a 2 person group now providing another set of tools.
That's simple; "What computer were you planning on buying?"
I don't know your experience, though this is mine;
I've put computers together for people, I've given them advice, I've even given them a store plus model name plus a few suggestions. I've warned people off of buying a brand, and told them that there are problems with specific hardware that they have thier eye on. All good stuff...none of it aimed toward an agenda...all focusing on what they said they want to do with a specific budget...and they always end up buying what they wanted in the first place or (if I put it together) drooling over the machine they really wanted.
There is no other answer. Unfortunately, the same thing often applies in business though if the managers have good computers they tend to ignore what you do with the rest of the systems.
Yep, no matter how impressive it looks, there's only so much you can do with Powerpoint.
All kidding aside, there are only so many good programmers and associated professionals. If a government agency wants the good ones, chances are they're going to have to either lure them in, train them from the inside, or buy off the rack; contractors.
Yep, no matter how impressive it looks, there's only so much you can do with Powerpoint.
I did. There are 100~ differences. Want to give me the highlights?
I'm curious what was added beyond what is offered by Excel. Any really interesting little tidbits?
The method you recommend is a pain because you're doing it wrong! (It's also something I would have recommended a few years ago when many of my cables would not work or work well.)
At that time, I met a phone installer. After going through cable after cable of my own tedious and exact cables, I shut up and watched him. The first thing he did was sheer off about 6 inches of the cover, using the pull string to slit it open. Then, pulling each wire up like hair on a doll, he moved each into position and started to align them, dancing the wires around each other only as necessary. Only at the last moment did he pull all the wires together and snip them off before putting a connector on and crimping.
This takes ~45 seconds if you're slow, and ~10 seconds if you're at the level of the phone installer I mentioned. The resulting cable ends that always work. To learn this method takes a hell of a lot less practice.
If you try this method and it does not work, find someone who knows what they are doing and watch them!
Gotcha. Thanks for the comments.
...that said, maybe this case is different. Ignore my comments.
If you want to make something that works just like the original, you copy much of the bad behavior as well as the good. How these defects are implemented, though, is up to the developers though they have to duplicate them. See Wine as an example.
Hey, you talk as if my, my manager's, the IT staff, the IT staff's manager's, ... input was the deciding factor. We (as the project group; design, development, deployment, maintenance, and long-term management) would agree with you. The home office gives final signoff, though. They said 'We are HP and Microsoft partners...we won't be using Linux'. Calling them morons is kinda missing the point; they value the HP and MS partnerships. Nothing else is under discussion for the current project.
On-Site: We'll save $300,000 if we use Linux instead of HPUX and Windows on the servers.
Home office: You will use HPUX and Windows.
On-Site: Why? It's more expensive!
Home office: We are Microsoft and HP partners. We will not be using Linux.
That said, we're using Linux after the main installation (with Windows and HPUX) goes in. Most of the cost savings and support benifits are lost, though, since the budget has been misspent already.
Don't.
Look, at first glance such schemes offer ways to simply cashflow issues, in the management context, and defer technical decisions to a known quantity, from a technical point of view. But looking at the wider picture, you're pretty much putting your testicles into a vice with someone who really has little reason to concern themselves with your needs holding the vice handle.
I didn't see where the original question asked about purchasing more of a contracting company's services. When I first read it, it looked like the question was how to find more contracting work (since they already do some contracting work).
Contractors -- and hiring more employees -- serves a purpose. Personally -- {BSEG} -- I neither have enough time in the day or knowledge to be capable of doing everything. Anyone who says they can do it all don't have much to do, are lying, or just inexperienced.
If you can maintain a network, plus design-document-&-code new software, maintain the old stuff, go to management meetings for half the day, *and* have time to learn new skills...well, you're not spending your work hours on your core job (and you probably spend your non-work hours on excessive amounts of work). You probably are spread so thin that you need help...and even if you could figure it all out, why bother when someone else can do a better job?
That said, if you hire anyone -- under a contract or as an employee -- and nobody on your side is interested in exactly how the new hire or contracor get things done...well, don't expect precision.
As someone who has exclusively worked on contracts for the past 10 years, on both sides of the contract, the good ones suceed because *both* sides are honest, interested, and professional.
Those expecting an Us-vs-Them relationship tend to get it. Those who play the blame game encourage finger pointing -- and promoting the worst kind of back stabbers. Those who won't follow through and cleanly hold the other teams accountable -- and suck it up when at fault -- also have problems.
That said, often bad money decisions made early on can impact the whole project and force people into doing bad things. (Example: The project I'm currently on has no single requirements document and the end customer doesn't care. Instead, the customer pokes through trashcans for potential security breaches instead of checking to see if the new applications and servers work as they should. No focus, lots of mistrust, and the sad thing is that if things were planned a little differently early on these issues would be largely eliminated. (Yes, checking trashcans and other physical areas for security breaches is a good idea on many projects.))
They already are...again.
So, after two weeks would the sound be...
or
woof?
The 3100 is similar in many ways to the A70. I don't think either is superior to the other, though there are differences. For me, a non-photo geek, the Nikon was the better choice. For a real avid photographer, the A70 with it's extensive manual controls is a better choice.
- Limited content version: Pay and get added binaries that include more levels, features, tools, networking, or special support (forums, module trading area)
Didn't you hear? SCO is suing God for patent infringement on the original caffeinated version. They've already tracked Him down and expect Him to pay real soon. You'd be amazed where He was found, says a SCO spokesman, but they won't provide details because...well, no details. Once God caves in, they plan to push other infringement suits; Nestle, Starbucks, and that terrorist funded coffee chain with a moose as it's logo were mentioned.
The Canon A70 just dropped to $300. It's 3MP and quite nice. Personally, I decided to get a Nikon Coolpix 3100 since I'm a geek just not a photo geek. It uses CF cards, like the Canon, and offers many nice automatic modes...yet, if you like to tell your camera what to do instead of it figuring it out for you, the Canon A70 is a good choice. Now, try and find one!
Thanks for the URL. To answer: Nope, I haven't tried and till now I wasn't too curious. I half expect that using SMS from an AT&T network will give different results from using it from another network. (Yep, it shouldn't matter...yet, not being able to turn off annoying options is also strange and smacks of marketers forcing 'features'.)
My AT&T wireless reps kept tellinig me all sorts of stuff that was false, so make sure you validate their claims.
I'm not surprised. Can't get a consistant answer out of them for other questions I've asked. The stunning thing is that each person is confident of the (often conflicting) answer they give.
After some frustrating attempts to figure out how to disable it, even being told by customer service that it "can't be turned off", I marched in to an AT&T mobile store and demanded _they_ turn it off. A smile, a nod, and a few keystrokes later they said they turned SMS off for me.
Customer service still says it's enabled on my phone and "can't" be disabled...yet, I've seen no more spams.
Not for me. After someone brought a contaminated laptop in yet again and caused the IT staff here to spend 50+ hours cleaning up the mess across the whole network, I was told "You, don't boot your laptop - I don't want it on the network".
While I did boot into W2K about a week ago, my daily desktop is KDE 3 running on Linux. When I pointed this out, the IT manager said "OK, use Linux just don't boot into Windows." {BSEG}
The only thing that irks me is that I can't easily check the Windows partition for the virus (no floppy drive) without booting it and my last full backup was just before the virus was noticed. Bottom line: I don't trust a virus detector/remover to remove a virus that got there before it did.