If the problem is with a tech job where your qualifications and the job position are reasonably matched; just take the job even if the pay isn't so good.
Almost all of my career changes have been "lateral" or even "downward" in terms of starting salary; but in every case, I got a significant (20%+) raise within a few months when the employer realized what I could do for them. The first time this happened, I didn't even ask for any reviews or adjustments. They just did it.
Besides, even if you don't get the pay increase, the fact that you're employed will: a) pay the bills, and b) be a stepping stone to the next position somewhere else.
I suspect many in your audience will be hard of hearing, seeing, and remembering details... So, print easy-to-read simple step-by-step cheat-sheets for doing common tasks. And, repetition improves retention. So be sure to repeat some of the more important points throughout your presentation. Remember, repetition improves retention.
Presumably, your audience will be inexperienced about the Internet. While there might be techsavvy seniors, I think the biggest benefit to open the Internet to the group is to keep it simple and go for the least common denominator.
Don't spend too much time explaining how the Internet works. Just give enough details (and de-technologize is possible) to explain that the web browser is like an access device (like a telephone) to information stored somewhere else. Lots of first-timers end up thinking the information somehow is stored on the local machine.
It might even be sufficient to just point them to Yahoo and it's services (Yahoo mail). Or (shudder) even AOL. Mind you, this is just to get them started and to get comfortable with how to use a computer to access the net-connected world. Think of it as training wheels...:)
In response to community outrage on dynamic pricing for sales conducted over the Internet, two online market makers, eBay and Priceline.com, announced that they will abandon dynamic pricing and go to fixed prices.
After this announcement, the price of eBay shares has been fixed to $61.25 on the NASDAQ.
Good point -- to be truly fair, the "correct" approach to adding more hardware would be to construct a cluster which would end up costing much more.
But my point was that for DSS, you probably don't need a cluster. You probably can get by with data replication to your Nth database server. If your sole purpose is to support a large number of ad-hoc DSS queries on historical data, your server don't even need to be networked to each other (as long as you have some way of updating the data on all servers).
It's not a fair comparison; but for DSS, the SGI/Linux score isn't as impressive at it could have been.
BTW, the Sequent (IBM) NUMA-Q that score well in the higher classes are basically 4-processor servers clustered together with optical internetworking. They are essentially a cluster sold as a "partitionable" single computer!
While I'm happy to see Linux on the TPC-H leader board, there are several things that makes me feel this "win" isn't as glorious as it could be...
First of all, the cost/performance ratio is much higher than the Windows-based entrants. Since this is a decision support benchmark, the work is heavily skewed to reading mostly static data; a solution which more easily scales up by throwing hardware at it.
Put differently, if you run two clusters of the 2nd (3rd, 4th or 5th) ranked system, and it'll have better performance than the Linux solution, but at lower cost/performance ratio.
Second, the results show that Windows (coupled with cheap hardware) is working so well at the low end that it pretty much displaced Unix systems. (Geez, no wonder Sun's getting creamed in the desktop workstation market these days.)
Third, this "win" is not for a write-heavy database application -- in my personal experience, Linux has been an underperformer in write-heavy database application. (With synchronous writing turned on to guarantee data flush to disk). This makes it less appealing for real-time transactional database work.
Separately, I wish such tools as PowerBuilder and CrystalReports were available for Linux... That would go a longer way to making Linux acceptable to the Enterprise...
That's okay. It wasn't like they went in and "repainted" everything. Most likely some histogram/brightness/contrast/gamma corrections which is appropriate for the task.
The "touch ups" to compensate for deterioration would be more of an issue; but only if large sections had to be filled in. Averaging adjacent areas to "fill in" voids would be okay.
Years ago, I imagined some Dead Sea Scroll documents and computer enhanced them to improve readability. A cantankerous old critic claimed I was falsifying images. Blech.
Yeah, so you can see through the case; but I'd rather see a transparent motherboard and PCI cards.
Too bad transparent metals cannot exist in reality, because this PC will radiate so much emission that it'll heat up your dinner, and redirect the flightpath of commercial jets!
You can read more about the different optical switching technology in the January 2001 issue of Scientific American. Their special report, "The rise of optical switching" explains the various technologies used to switch photonic circuits.
Unfortunately, the article is not available on-line, though you can see a related article about the rise of optical networking. You can see the article abstracts at SciAm.Com.
The switching technology for Lynx's switch sounds like thermo-optic switches. If so, it uses light interference to pass/block signals. The technology is wavelength sensitive, unlike MEMS or bubble switches. Also, liquid-crystal switching (another popular photonic switch technology) is polarization sensitive.
While they might be using the latest state-of-the-industry battery technology, their external battery pack idea is nothing new.
I used to see the same thing advertised on 1800batteries.com (though admittedly a little thicker and heavier then).
If runtime alone was important, you could have just gotten a sealed lead-acid battery. (Or a car battery for even more power, but they ain't quite so safe.)
In a way, the microprocessor has "grown up".
Mainframe processor cores from long ago have thermal shutdown to prevent catastrophic failure.
Let's see...
Thousands of network-attached clients (terminals) running applications on the server (mainframe).
Gobs of disk capacity and error-correcting memory.
Thermal shutdown on the CPU to prevent damaging the system.
Needs good cooling.
Yup, I'd say the microcomputers is the next mainframe.
Man, oh, man... Some of the best servers admin work I've done were done without physical access to the machine.
I OS-upgraded a Sun server in London from Los Angeles without anyone having to be there. Just plenty of disk space and a serial cable attached to the router. Try that on a NT box!
Get a high-end multimedia laptop. A refurbished Dell Inspiron 7500 does me wonders. It's better than anything else I owned until two days ago...
If you insist on "desktop components" (3.5" ATA100 drives at 7200 rpm, for example), then your box size is not limited by the motherboard -- instead, it'll be the power supply, hard-drive, and the cd-rom drive that'll dominate the form factor.
You can try buying a small-form-factor computer like the Dell Optiplex GX150 SF, or a Compaq EN SFF. They pack the components about as tight as you can possibly get.
The only drawback is the lack of an AGP slot (at least in the Compaq EN SFF that I just bought two days ago). But there's 3 (count 'em) PCI slots, and networking and sound's already built in!
BTW, these SFF machines are QUIET! Much better than any low-cost homebrew's. (I could get just as quiet machines if I paid for quiet fans, and power supplies, but the end result costs just about the same as the branded machines... Oh well.)
The problem isn't that DSL doesn't work. It's cut-rate pricing offered by myopic providers to feed myopic customers that leads to a sudden boom followed by a bust.
Consolidation and streamlining will follow. The numerous competing technologies will eventually give way to a few popularly supported technology. (ADSL-G.lite and G.dmt standards.)
Unless alternative technologies offer clear cost/performance benefits, the standard will eventually be entrenched. Prices will go up for a while, but so will the quality-of-service. Eventually, improvements in the technology will stabilize the price, and the threat of new entrants will (hopefully) bring the prices down.
And, when the new technology is clearly superior, it then becomes the norm. The old (mature) technology dies away, or becomes relegated to lower price-points.
It was true for transportation -- steam-ships gave way to locomotives which gave way to airplanes. The pony express gave way to telegraphs which gave way to telephones. It was true for private communication networks with Telex giving way to early national private networks (Tymnet, EasyLink, and others that I don't even remember) which are giving way to the Internet.
In the long term, the free market will figure it out. In the meanwhile, sometimes, you're just stuck having bet on the losing technology.
Somethings not right... Hacker #1 takes a break at 5:30PM to have a dinner-date with a girlfriend, and then returns at 7:30PM?
I'd believe it more if he didn't have a girlfriend, or 2) took the reset of the night off to be with his honey.
Offtopic?!? Ugh. I daresay it's funny *and* insightful.
There's a reason why UPS, FedEx and such large companies have databases (as in: RDBMS software, mainframe computers, and large array of drives) that costs $$$$.
Just because it's cheaper and open-source, it doesn't mean it's the better solution -- it's foolishness! (Of course, using Teradata for storing your company roster is foolishness in the other direction.)
GnuPS ia a new SourceForge project to develop a peer-to-peer parcel delivery service.
Parcels are carried in hub-and-spoke fashion by opensource developers commuting to and from work in major metropolitan cities. The service is open to anyone without any restrictions, except that all parcels delivered by GnuPS must be available for inspection by anyone.
Although delivery options, service time and reliability don't yet match that of commercial parcel delivery services, GnuPS is improving every day with suggstions from GnuPS users and new volunteers in the GnuPS delivery network.
GnuPS runs on Linux 2.4.2 + MySQL 3.23.33 + PHP 4.0.
GnuPS CentralOffice requires a minimum of a 486SX-50 PC's with 32 MB of memory, 400MB disk space, a CueCAT barcode wand, and an interface to GnuPS Drivers (via 10BaseT or a docking cradle).
GnuPS Driver requires a minimum of a Linux-capable handheld PC or laptop, 30MB of storage (disk or flash), and a CueCAT Decoder.
Slashdot Mirror
Those "annoying voices" were (at least in part) a vehicle for Monty Python references. "Shut up! Sorrrrry. Shut up! Owwww!"
The "fighter pilot" thing ties into The Right Stuff.
There were other references, some I didn't catch (but my other friends did)...
Fun movie. Must see.
If Home Depot isn't a big-enough installed base, I don't know what is... Check out this ZDNet article.
Dang, I was going to do an Apple II retro conversion, but this has taken the wind out my sails. :(
Almost all of my career changes have been "lateral" or even "downward" in terms of starting salary; but in every case, I got a significant (20%+) raise within a few months when the employer realized what I could do for them. The first time this happened, I didn't even ask for any reviews or adjustments. They just did it.
Besides, even if you don't get the pay increase, the fact that you're employed will: a) pay the bills, and b) be a stepping stone to the next position somewhere else.
I suspect many in your audience will be hard of hearing, seeing, and remembering details... So, print easy-to-read simple step-by-step cheat-sheets for doing common tasks. And, repetition improves retention. So be sure to repeat some of the more important points throughout your presentation. Remember, repetition improves retention.
Don't spend too much time explaining how the Internet works. Just give enough details (and de-technologize is possible) to explain that the web browser is like an access device (like a telephone) to information stored somewhere else. Lots of first-timers end up thinking the information somehow is stored on the local machine.
It might even be sufficient to just point them to Yahoo and it's services (Yahoo mail). Or (shudder) even AOL. Mind you, this is just to get them started and to get comfortable with how to use a computer to access the net-connected world. Think of it as training wheels... :)
In response to community outrage on dynamic pricing for sales conducted over the Internet, two online market makers, eBay and Priceline.com, announced that they will abandon dynamic pricing and go to fixed prices.
After this announcement, the price of eBay shares has been fixed to $61.25 on the NASDAQ.
Good point -- to be truly fair, the "correct" approach to adding more hardware would be to construct a cluster which would end up costing much more.
But my point was that for DSS, you probably don't need a cluster. You probably can get by with data replication to your Nth database server. If your sole purpose is to support a large number of ad-hoc DSS queries on historical data, your server don't even need to be networked to each other (as long as you have some way of updating the data on all servers).
It's not a fair comparison; but for DSS, the SGI/Linux score isn't as impressive at it could have been.
BTW, the Sequent (IBM) NUMA-Q that score well in the higher classes are basically 4-processor servers clustered together with optical internetworking. They are essentially a cluster sold as a "partitionable" single computer!
While I'm happy to see Linux on the TPC-H leader board, there are several things that makes me feel this "win" isn't as glorious as it could be...
First of all, the cost/performance ratio is much higher than the Windows-based entrants. Since this is a decision support benchmark, the work is heavily skewed to reading mostly static data; a solution which more easily scales up by throwing hardware at it.
Put differently, if you run two clusters of the 2nd (3rd, 4th or 5th) ranked system, and it'll have better performance than the Linux solution, but at lower cost/performance ratio.
Second, the results show that Windows (coupled with cheap hardware) is working so well at the low end that it pretty much displaced Unix systems. (Geez, no wonder Sun's getting creamed in the desktop workstation market these days.)
Third, this "win" is not for a write-heavy database application -- in my personal experience, Linux has been an underperformer in write-heavy database application. (With synchronous writing turned on to guarantee data flush to disk). This makes it less appealing for real-time transactional database work.
Separately, I wish such tools as PowerBuilder and CrystalReports were available for Linux... That would go a longer way to making Linux acceptable to the Enterprise...
Actually, yes. The metal content in a $20 will make it stick to a really strong magnet.
Ooops. That's imaged not imagined. What a slip!
That's okay. It wasn't like they went in and "repainted" everything. Most likely some histogram/brightness/contrast/gamma corrections which is appropriate for the task.
The "touch ups" to compensate for deterioration would be more of an issue; but only if large sections had to be filled in. Averaging adjacent areas to "fill in" voids would be okay.
Years ago, I imagined some Dead Sea Scroll documents and computer enhanced them to improve readability. A cantankerous old critic claimed I was falsifying images. Blech.
Yeah, so you can see through the case; but I'd rather see a transparent motherboard and PCI cards. Too bad transparent metals cannot exist in reality, because this PC will radiate so much emission that it'll heat up your dinner, and redirect the flightpath of commercial jets!
A book is nice on a 6 hours flight from Los Angeles to London. And I don't panic if I drop the book.
You can read more about the different optical switching technology in the January 2001 issue of Scientific American. Their special report, "The rise of optical switching" explains the various technologies used to switch photonic circuits.
Unfortunately, the article is not available on-line, though you can see a related article about the rise of optical networking. You can see the article abstracts at SciAm.Com.
The switching technology for Lynx's switch sounds like thermo-optic switches. If so, it uses light interference to pass/block signals. The technology is wavelength sensitive, unlike MEMS or bubble switches. Also, liquid-crystal switching (another popular photonic switch technology) is polarization sensitive.
While they might be using the latest state-of-the-industry battery technology, their external battery pack idea is nothing new.
I used to see the same thing advertised on 1800batteries.com (though admittedly a little thicker and heavier then).
If runtime alone was important, you could have just gotten a sealed lead-acid battery. (Or a car battery for even more power, but they ain't quite so safe.)
In a way, the microprocessor has "grown up". Mainframe processor cores from long ago have thermal shutdown to prevent catastrophic failure. Let's see... Thousands of network-attached clients (terminals) running applications on the server (mainframe). Gobs of disk capacity and error-correcting memory. Thermal shutdown on the CPU to prevent damaging the system. Needs good cooling. Yup, I'd say the microcomputers is the next mainframe.
Man, oh, man... Some of the best servers admin work I've done were done without physical access to the machine. I OS-upgraded a Sun server in London from Los Angeles without anyone having to be there. Just plenty of disk space and a serial cable attached to the router. Try that on a NT box!
Ooops. Sorry for the formatting error...
You'll also want to spring for a 15" LCD screen, I think.
Dell's GX150 SF can be seen here .
Compaq's EN SFF can be seen here.
Get a high-end multimedia laptop. A refurbished Dell Inspiron 7500 does me wonders. It's better than anything else I owned until two days ago... If you insist on "desktop components" (3.5" ATA100 drives at 7200 rpm, for example), then your box size is not limited by the motherboard -- instead, it'll be the power supply, hard-drive, and the cd-rom drive that'll dominate the form factor. You can try buying a small-form-factor computer like the Dell Optiplex GX150 SF, or a Compaq EN SFF. They pack the components about as tight as you can possibly get. The only drawback is the lack of an AGP slot (at least in the Compaq EN SFF that I just bought two days ago). But there's 3 (count 'em) PCI slots, and networking and sound's already built in! BTW, these SFF machines are QUIET! Much better than any low-cost homebrew's. (I could get just as quiet machines if I paid for quiet fans, and power supplies, but the end result costs just about the same as the branded machines... Oh well.)
The problem isn't that DSL doesn't work. It's cut-rate pricing offered by myopic providers to feed myopic customers that leads to a sudden boom followed by a bust.
Consolidation and streamlining will follow. The numerous competing technologies will eventually give way to a few popularly supported technology. (ADSL-G.lite and G.dmt standards.)
Unless alternative technologies offer clear cost/performance benefits, the standard will eventually be entrenched. Prices will go up for a while, but so will the quality-of-service. Eventually, improvements in the technology will stabilize the price, and the threat of new entrants will (hopefully) bring the prices down.
And, when the new technology is clearly superior, it then becomes the norm. The old (mature) technology dies away, or becomes relegated to lower price-points.
It was true for transportation -- steam-ships gave way to locomotives which gave way to airplanes. The pony express gave way to telegraphs which gave way to telephones. It was true for private communication networks with Telex giving way to early national private networks (Tymnet, EasyLink, and others that I don't even remember) which are giving way to the Internet.
In the long term, the free market will figure it out. In the meanwhile, sometimes, you're just stuck having bet on the losing technology.
Somethings not right... Hacker #1 takes a break at 5:30PM to have a dinner-date with a girlfriend, and then returns at 7:30PM? I'd believe it more if he didn't have a girlfriend, or 2) took the reset of the night off to be with his honey.
fp!
Offtopic?!? Ugh. I daresay it's funny *and* insightful.
There's a reason why UPS, FedEx and such large companies have databases (as in: RDBMS software, mainframe computers, and large array of drives) that costs $$$$.
Just because it's cheaper and open-source, it doesn't mean it's the better solution -- it's foolishness! (Of course, using Teradata for storing your company roster is foolishness in the other direction.)
Sigh.
GnuPS ia a new SourceForge project to develop a peer-to-peer parcel delivery service.
Parcels are carried in hub-and-spoke fashion by opensource developers commuting to and from work in major metropolitan cities. The service is open to anyone without any restrictions, except that all parcels delivered by GnuPS must be available for inspection by anyone.
Although delivery options, service time and reliability don't yet match that of commercial parcel delivery services, GnuPS is improving every day with suggstions from GnuPS users and new volunteers in the GnuPS delivery network.
GnuPS runs on Linux 2.4.2 + MySQL 3.23.33 + PHP 4.0.
GnuPS CentralOffice requires a minimum of a 486SX-50 PC's with 32 MB of memory, 400MB disk space, a CueCAT barcode wand, and an interface to GnuPS Drivers (via 10BaseT or a docking cradle).
GnuPS Driver requires a minimum of a Linux-capable handheld PC or laptop, 30MB of storage (disk or flash), and a CueCAT Decoder.