Not only does U-Haul not do reservations well (if at all), but some of the equipment they rent has issues due to age/neglect, and using U-Haul equipment isn't that inexpensive if you end up moving a thousand miles away or more between milage charges, fuel cost, etc.
My wife and I rented a pair of U-Haul trucks (one 17-foot and one 24-foot) and two car trailers for our move from Minneapolis to Atlanta in September 2004, and while we did get down here intact 2 1/2 days later, the move was not without issues (my truck constantly beeped while being driven, the oil dipstick guide tube was broken so there was no way to check the oil to see if the Check Engine light meant anything, and its parking brake didn't hold on a slope so we had to put a couple of cement blocks behind the tires to keep half of our worldly possessions from rolling off into the sunset).
It seemed like a good idea at the time.:-) Our options were limited financially, tho...
I think our situation is similar (we also use Lotus Notes), but I don't really know what the actual formal limits are, and I do a fairly good job of keeping my inbox clean and storing stuff off on my own local disk.
The cost of living differences can be HUGE between metro areas, especially when it comes to housing. For example, the same house here in a semi-nice NW suburb of Atlanta is 20-30% less expensive here than it would have been in an equivalent suburb in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, and cost of living in the Twin Cities wasn't all that high to begin with. You can find 2500 square foot houses here with basements and nice yards in a convenant community (usually with community tennis courts and pool) for $200,000, and that's just a few miles outside of the 285 perimeter. Try that in Seattle.:-)
The use of command aliases is a good way reduce command complexity, thus reducing the number of typographical errors (and the resulting operational errors) when doing support.
That, by itself, could be a strong case for allowing an approved subset of aliases on your set of supported servers. Demonstrate a case where a simple typo could be catastrophic.
Typically, however, those aliases are resident in the shell local to the server, not in an ssh client (which usually provides pass-through access to the shell [and aliases] on the server).
If management is adverse to the idea of aliases for some reason, you might want to look at using a keystroke recording/playback utility to run on top of the ssh client. I've seen a number of those for Windows over the years.
My first x86 system (a pizza-box-shaped Dell System 220 with a 40MB hard drive and a 3.5" diskette drive) purchased in the fall of 1988 used a 20MHz Harris 80286 CPU and had one (1) MB of 60ns RAM.
That machine was a screamer for the time (Intel was only making 16MHz 286 chips), and Dell was making headlines in Byte and PC Mag for the high-quality 286 and 386 machines they were producing that ran rings around their competition performancewise.
"Cheap" was never their motto, at least in terms of hardware quality. There were a number of no-name PC vendors that claimed that title. If anything, Dell was the Porsche of their day. You got a fast PC, but you paid for it. It could be less expensive because Dell sold their product directly to the customer (no dealers like IBM and Apple had at Computerland), which cut costs down, but the kit itself was top notch, at least at that time (four years after they opened their doors).
Most of the problems I have with Microsoft code in a security context has to do with the implementation of asinine ideas like "executable files" in e-mail clients.
*NO* e-mail client should allow the direct execution of a file, be it a program, a macro, or a shell script. The concept of saving an attachment and then explicitly running it later is not a difficult one, and folks who cannot handle that basic sequence of tasks should not be allowed to run such things in the first place.
Hopefully the six versions of Vista are actually one set of core system services (or perhaps two, one client and one server) plus six different sets of bundled apps and utilities.
Steve...? Hmmm.:-) It's been a while. Hi! And yes.:-) I really do need to get my own domain, but in the meantime it's nice to have at least *some* level of logical continuity on the net (doubly important for me since I've so badly failed to maintain my geographical continuity!).
You're absolutely correct. Which is why I feel in the tech field, you ought not allow yourself to get pigeonholed. When the world starts moving a different direction, you need to move with it and keep your skills up to date.
Diversification is not always easy to do on company time, though I've managed to do some of that, but it's something to strive for in one's personal time at least.
I thought it was to my advantage to specialize on company time to a certain extent, but due to circumstances beyond my control (9/11) the entire industry I worked in (airlines) started dumping people. My 13 years wasn't enough tenure at the time to save me. Luck of the draw.
It's difficult, because it takes you out of your comfort zone, but you have to do it. Even though there is still work out there for some old system, eventually that's going to dry up, and you'll be left holding a bag of useless knowledge.
That isn't the source of the difficulty I encounter. I *love* learning new systems. However, many of the systems I'm interested in learning about are (a) not available at all at my current workplace, (b) available at work but hard to justify being involved with on the company dime, and/or (c) too expensive or otherwise impractical for home use/exposure.
That limits the options available -- otherwise I'd have been an IBM mainframe "expert" a decade ago.:-) As it is, though, I'm doing software development on two server platforms (one old and not terribly marketable, and one old and still somewhat marketable) with some potentially newer stuff on the horizon.
The experience is still useful though, and applicable towards new technologies.
I believe that to be true. Fortunately, some employers also seem to believe that. Sadly, however, many of them don't seem to, at least in my experience. That attitude hurts everyone.
The lessons I learned watching system performance on DECstations back in the early 1990s is still applicable today when we're trying to watch performance on Windows servers using SQL Analysis Services 2005 today. The computers are faster, bigger and the technology is vastly improved... but an I/O bottleneck is still a bottleneck and the tell tale signs of what limit your hitting is still very similar.
Agreed.
I think you've brought up a very good point though, something people in the tech world need to be aware of if they want to remain employed.
Believe me, it'll become quickly apparent if they ever become unemployed...
It's nice to agree with you on a topic for a change, BTW.;-)
This is why it's good to be a diverse, hands-on IT worker.
I agree, but I'm still uncertain how to advertise yourself as such (even if you have the skills).
When I was unemployed between Jan 2002 and Sep 2004, I found that I was unable to find work (or even get an interview!) in things like PC support or Linux sysadmin work despite having 15+ years of the former (mostly informal experience building dozens of machines/Multi-OS setups/LANs/etc) and 8+ years of the latter.
Even through a temp agency, people wanted evidence of formal experience and didn't seem to care at all about the 15-30 hours/week I'd spent on such things (between work and home) since 1988.:-(
My main "formal" experience is as a programmer/analyst, but I created several custom resumes trying to downplay that and bring out the PC hardware/software config experience I have, and it got me absolutely nowhere. I ended up having to move across the country to find work (as a programmer/anaylst, something I love doing, but something which only takes advantage of a smallish fraction of my knowledge/skillset).
I think the problem (in my case) was the Twin Cities. My youngest brother (former cable and comm tech) is looking for work up there after being laid off again, and I still know a few highly qualified software or s/w management folks who've been out of permanent work up there since the fall of 2001!
That's true until you gain some experience and start looking for your next job.
At that point, you'lf find yourself categorized and pigeonholed based on the tech that you've had formal wexperience with, not the tech you actually know.
It's easier to find work (in some ways) when you're fresh out of school.
The fact that Microsoft has been legally classified as a "monopoly" in the desktop OS space is absolutely critical to the criticisms and lawsuits that have subsequently been levelled at them.
If you fail to acknowledge this one simple fact, you'll NEVER understand the situation w.r.t. Microsoft and illegal bundling/leveraging.
Sorry for the tone, but this has been repeated ad Nauseum for YEARS and people still seem to be sticking their fingers in their ears about it. Whether you disagree or not simply isn't relevant in the eyes of the law. Don't like it? Vote folks in who will change the law.
Windows is a blassing to some, a pain to others, and it's everywhere (often not by choice), but that by itself is not illegal (as I understand it). Microsoft can continue to have a monopoly on desktop operating systems and still operate within the law.
However, using that monopoly to leverage other products in other product areas *is* a violation of existing anti-trust laws, both in the US and in the EU (as well as many other places like Japan, South Korea, etc.).
That is why these stories keep on being brought up, and why these discussions exist. When MS is accused of doing something in violation of the law, it makes news, and it also has a fairly good chance of impacting common users (mainly by reducing choice).
That's why Delphi's eventual 20/20 plan ($20/month for 20 hours of time) was so cool -- it let folks like me do most of what we wanted to do for $20/month. The fact that I used a script to harvest various Delphi forums and then convert them to QWK so I could read them offline helped reduce the expenses a lot, too.:-)
The Fossil/Abacus watches synch using a USB cable (a mini-A plugs directly into the watch), and a full battery charge lasts from 1-3 days depending on usage.
It's easy to synch via Palm Desktop, and it talks IR to other Palms (so flipping files back and forth between it and other Palms is a snap).
Slashdot Mirror
Not only does U-Haul not do reservations well (if at all), but some of the equipment they rent has issues due to age/neglect, and using U-Haul equipment isn't that inexpensive if you end up moving a thousand miles away or more between milage charges, fuel cost, etc.
:-) Our options were limited financially, tho...
My wife and I rented a pair of U-Haul trucks (one 17-foot and one 24-foot) and two car trailers for our move from Minneapolis to Atlanta in September 2004, and while we did get down here intact 2 1/2 days later, the move was not without issues (my truck constantly beeped while being driven, the oil dipstick guide tube was broken so there was no way to check the oil to see if the Check Engine light meant anything, and its parking brake didn't hold on a slope so we had to put a couple of cement blocks behind the tires to keep half of our worldly possessions from rolling off into the sunset).
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
I think our situation is similar (we also use Lotus Notes), but I don't really know what the actual formal limits are, and I do a fairly good job of keeping my inbox clean and storing stuff off on my own local disk.
By "vertical selection of text", do you mean column blocking? That's what many text editors call it, anyway.
If you say so. :-)
The cost of living differences can be HUGE between metro areas, especially when it comes to housing. For example, the same house here in a semi-nice NW suburb of Atlanta is 20-30% less expensive here than it would have been in an equivalent suburb in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, and cost of living in the Twin Cities wasn't all that high to begin with. You can find 2500 square foot houses here with basements and nice yards in a convenant community (usually with community tennis courts and pool) for $200,000, and that's just a few miles outside of the 285 perimeter. Try that in Seattle. :-)
This might be an interesting read, and this might be as well.
Oh good! A contest...
Here are some Microsoft misbehaviors
The Dell System 220 I owned had a steel case, as did all of the Dell models I remember from the time. Not plastic.
The use of command aliases is a good way reduce command complexity, thus reducing the number of typographical errors (and the resulting operational errors) when doing support.
That, by itself, could be a strong case for allowing an approved subset of aliases on your set of supported servers. Demonstrate a case where a simple typo could be catastrophic.
Typically, however, those aliases are resident in the shell local to the server, not in an ssh client (which usually provides pass-through access to the shell [and aliases] on the server).
If management is adverse to the idea of aliases for some reason, you might want to look at using a keystroke recording/playback utility to run on top of the ssh client. I've seen a number of those for Windows over the years.
My first x86 system (a pizza-box-shaped Dell System 220 with a 40MB hard drive and a 3.5" diskette drive) purchased in the fall of 1988 used a 20MHz Harris 80286 CPU and had one (1) MB of 60ns RAM.
That machine was a screamer for the time (Intel was only making 16MHz 286 chips), and Dell was making headlines in Byte and PC Mag for the high-quality 286 and 386 machines they were producing that ran rings around their competition performancewise.
"Cheap" was never their motto, at least in terms of hardware quality. There were a number of no-name PC vendors that claimed that title. If anything, Dell was the Porsche of their day. You got a fast PC, but you paid for it. It could be less expensive because Dell sold their product directly to the customer (no dealers like IBM and Apple had at Computerland), which cut costs down, but the kit itself was top notch, at least at that time (four years after they opened their doors).
If Safari behaves similarly, then Apple is just as guilty. Me, I just use Pine for e-mail in spite of the platform(s) involved. :-)
Most of the problems I have with Microsoft code in a security context has to do with the implementation of asinine ideas like "executable files" in e-mail clients.
*NO* e-mail client should allow the direct execution of a file, be it a program, a macro, or a shell script. The concept of saving an attachment and then explicitly running it later is not a difficult one, and folks who cannot handle that basic sequence of tasks should not be allowed to run such things in the first place.
Hopefully the six versions of Vista are actually one set of core system services (or perhaps two, one client and one server) plus six different sets of bundled apps and utilities.
I would rather see a fountain of WISDOM... :-)
Because most of the time the accusation is correct.
*Do you go into interviews with that type of attitude? Thats a no-no.
:-)
Interviews are easy. Getting them is sometimes difficult.
[Searching memory]
Steve...? Hmmm. :-) It's been a while. Hi! And yes. :-) I really do need to get my own domain, but in the meantime it's nice to have at least *some* level of logical continuity on the net (doubly important for me since I've so badly failed to maintain my geographical continuity!).
You're absolutely correct. Which is why I feel in the tech field, you ought not allow yourself to get pigeonholed. When the world starts moving a different direction, you need to move with it and keep your skills up to date.
Diversification is not always easy to do on company time, though I've managed to do some of that, but it's something to strive for in one's personal time at least.
I thought it was to my advantage to specialize on company time to a certain extent, but due to circumstances beyond my control (9/11) the entire industry I worked in (airlines) started dumping people. My 13 years wasn't enough tenure at the time to save me. Luck of the draw.
It's difficult, because it takes you out of your comfort zone, but you have to do it. Even though there is still work out there for some old system, eventually that's going to dry up, and you'll be left holding a bag of useless knowledge.
That isn't the source of the difficulty I encounter. I *love* learning new systems. However, many of the systems I'm interested in learning about are (a) not available at all at my current workplace, (b) available at work but hard to justify being involved with on the company dime, and/or (c) too expensive or otherwise impractical for home use/exposure.
That limits the options available -- otherwise I'd have been an IBM mainframe "expert" a decade ago. :-) As it is, though, I'm doing software development on two server platforms (one old and not terribly marketable, and one old and still somewhat marketable) with some potentially newer stuff on the horizon.
The experience is still useful though, and applicable towards new technologies.
I believe that to be true. Fortunately, some employers also seem to believe that. Sadly, however, many of them don't seem to, at least in my experience. That attitude hurts everyone.
The lessons I learned watching system performance on DECstations back in the early 1990s is still applicable today when we're trying to watch performance on Windows servers using SQL Analysis Services 2005 today. The computers are faster, bigger and the technology is vastly improved... but an I/O bottleneck is still a bottleneck and the tell tale signs of what limit your hitting is still very similar.
Agreed.
I think you've brought up a very good point though, something people in the tech world need to be aware of if they want to remain employed.
Believe me, it'll become quickly apparent if they ever become unemployed...
It's nice to agree with you on a topic for a change, BTW. ;-)
This is why it's good to be a diverse, hands-on IT worker.
:-(
I agree, but I'm still uncertain how to advertise yourself as such (even if you have the skills).
When I was unemployed between Jan 2002 and Sep 2004, I found that I was unable to find work (or even get an interview!) in things like PC support or Linux sysadmin work despite having 15+ years of the former (mostly informal experience building dozens of machines/Multi-OS setups/LANs/etc) and 8+ years of the latter.
Even through a temp agency, people wanted evidence of formal experience and didn't seem to care at all about the 15-30 hours/week I'd spent on such things (between work and home) since 1988.
My main "formal" experience is as a programmer/analyst, but I created several custom resumes trying to downplay that and bring out the PC hardware/software config experience I have, and it got me absolutely nowhere. I ended up having to move across the country to find work (as a programmer/anaylst, something I love doing, but something which only takes advantage of a smallish fraction of my knowledge/skillset).
I think the problem (in my case) was the Twin Cities. My youngest brother (former cable and comm tech) is looking for work up there after being laid off again, and I still know a few highly qualified software or s/w management folks who've been out of permanent work up there since the fall of 2001!
That's true until you gain some experience and start looking for your next job.
At that point, you'lf find yourself categorized and pigeonholed based on the tech that you've had formal wexperience with, not the tech you actually know.
It's easier to find work (in some ways) when you're fresh out of school.
The fact that Microsoft has been legally classified as a "monopoly" in the desktop OS space is absolutely critical to the criticisms and lawsuits that have subsequently been levelled at them.
If you fail to acknowledge this one simple fact, you'll NEVER understand the situation w.r.t. Microsoft and illegal bundling/leveraging.
Sorry for the tone, but this has been repeated ad Nauseum for YEARS and people still seem to be sticking their fingers in their ears about it. Whether you disagree or not simply isn't relevant in the eyes of the law. Don't like it? Vote folks in who will change the law.
Windows is a blassing to some, a pain to others, and it's everywhere (often not by choice), but that by itself is not illegal (as I understand it). Microsoft can continue to have a monopoly on desktop operating systems and still operate within the law.
However, using that monopoly to leverage other products in other product areas *is* a violation of existing anti-trust laws, both in the US and in the EU (as well as many other places like Japan, South Korea, etc.).
That is why these stories keep on being brought up, and why these discussions exist. When MS is accused of doing something in violation of the law, it makes news, and it also has a fairly good chance of impacting common users (mainly by reducing choice).
The Win32 API eventually hurt OS/2, but there was a lot more:
i le/368660.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/the_company_f
Doesn't the wording of the EULA (apparently) release them from any obligation whatsoever?
That's why Delphi's eventual 20/20 plan ($20/month for 20 hours of time) was so cool -- it let folks like me do most of what we wanted to do for $20/month. The fact that I used a script to harvest various Delphi forums and then convert them to QWK so I could read them offline helped reduce the expenses a lot, too. :-)
The Fossil/Abacus watches synch using a USB cable (a mini-A plugs directly into the watch), and a full battery charge lasts from 1-3 days depending on usage.
It's easy to synch via Palm Desktop, and it talks IR to other Palms (so flipping files back and forth between it and other Palms is a snap).
Fnord.
I have two. They're lighter than the Fossil branded variants.
http://www.abacuswatches.com/
Tiger Direct is selling them for $49.95 plus shipping right now, and all kinds of folks are selling them on eBay for around US$50 (with shipping).
Not bad for a very portable B&W PalmOS 4.1 device, IMO...