why? If they have their standard shows they watch, they're going to watch them whether it's light outside or dark. If they like to sit in front of the TV all evening, I doubt that an hour change is going to suddenly inspire them to do something different. It's not like the shows have shifted.
I've been out to too many technically abled user's desks to fix problems that they've told me 'it's X, and this is why.' Only to find that they were hedging their facts to support what they'd decided the problem was.
I want to hear symptoms like: 'it's making a *adjective* noise,' 'this program crashes when I do X,' etc.
Let me troubleshoot, that's what I get paid for.
As well, I prefaced it with 'when I show up and find that it's a bad fan in the case,' trying to make the point that sometimes, a techish user may still be barking up the wrong tree, or even misunderstanding the results of the troubleshooting they are doing.
While I'm not a big windows fan, windows is actually designed with central management in mind, that gets to ridiculously granular control of user's desktop experience.
OSX, it's a painful tack-on. You can't lock a desktop down particularly much (and I don't want to hear about 'with mac's you don't have to, users can't do bad things to themself,' you haven't met my users (grade school kids and worse, their teachers)). Everything is half centrally controlled, half hands on each machine.
I've moved on from that job, supporting PCs and Macs in a school district, so maybe opendirectory and Apple's management tools have grown, but somehow I doubt it.
Schools are legally required to filter web access, ssh access to you're home machine is a quick step to an ssh tunnel to sidestep the filter. Thus no ssh access.
But your 'I'm much smarter than all of you' attitude will get you quickly fired from any company, clear communicating or not. Not because you were wrong in calling people on their fuzzy talk, but because you choose the most aggressive and antagonistic method of doing it.
One person, with someone who cares about helping them through a systems change, is very different than a whole bunch of people.
There were probably many people who didn't have troubles with the change, but in a large company, the people you hear from as a support tech are the ones having trouble. And after upgrades or upheaval, a lot of the requests are going to seem really dumb. Because people often don't pay attention, don't think about the tools their using, and even more, don't know how it works, but know a very defined set of steps to do their work. When you change those, there will be hell to pay, and it will take the users a long time to unlearn one set of behaviors and learn a new one.
People who use their computers to get things done, ie those who are not tinking with the computer for the sake of it, are generally opposed to having the system they *understand* replaced with ones they do not. No matter if that system in Win/OS9/X/Linux, it is a change in the tools they are comfortable with.
And yes, if you support a large group of people, who are *not stupid*, and change things on them, no matter how much advance warning and explaination you give, when things don't work the way they are used to they will do and say things that seem dumb. Because they aren't thinking about how things have changed, they're thinking about the work their doing and being stymied by the tools having been changed under them.
And this matters why? The topic is 'why did you switch' not 'why isn't linux ready for joe public.'
I could give a flying fuck about linux being for everyone or replacing microsoft. I use it for the freedom it gives me to fix my own problems, to tinker with that which mainstream oses hide from me, and to live true to my beliefs.
I'm not trying to convince everyone to use it, but you seem desperate to convince *someone* that because it's not good for mom and pop, it's not good for anyone.
it takes more effort to write real websites, and those sites will hopefully stand out against the noise floor of blogs.
presentation without content is fluff.
Yeah, lots of blogs are seemingly without content, but a whole lot aren't. I don't give a high flying crap about how nice a website you have, or if you're blog is pretty. If you have content that is of interest to me, and it's regularly updated, I'm gonna be checking it out regularly whether you call it a blog, a web journal, my homepage, or whatever.
I bet they can spell, and use proper grammar. And funnily enough, I've seen many an IT admin type get stuck trying something like a mail merge in Word.
People who think they are too good to learn something new are bad for their employers. They sure as hell aren't 'usefull.'
Can he manage you as a team is the question. I've had technically knowledgable managers who couldn't manage for shit, and technically inept managers who kept the IT department running smoothly.
If he can't manage there's a problem. And from your description, it sounds like he's not doing anything.
But a good manager helps with tasking things, interfaces with the company's management (so you don't have to), helps you get your job done, and keeps out of your way so you can do it. It's a bonus if they're technically savvy.
Why is it that everyone seems to think the journalist and CNet are bad, while Google is pristine and lovable? All the information was publicly available, and Google wants to index all publicly available information, no?
Shouldn't we ask whether Google's intent to make everything easily searchable is perhaps not as good as originally thought? Maybe there are things that shouldn't be easily searchable?
I don't use Gnome anymore. Or KDE. Both are big and bloated, and get in the way of what I moved to Linux for. To get things done, faster and easier. Fancy, pretty widgets that slow my machine down do not help me get things done.
I dj at several clubs, hip hop and downtempo mainly.
the pay sucks, but I'm used to that, and it comes with all the free drinks you can handle. A couple gigs a month pays for buying more records (yeah I got cds and mp3s, but nothing beats vinyl for hands on manipulation)
On extra good nights I get picked up on by drunken girls (and occasionally boys).
I also fix the computers at my girlfriend's work for cash under the table, which also goes to records...
Slashdot Mirror
What company do you work for? I would like to add it to our 'do not buy from' list.
The artist who did thru-you, *is* a multiinstrumentalist. He does play live.
why? If they have their standard shows they watch, they're going to watch them whether it's light outside or dark.
If they like to sit in front of the TV all evening, I doubt that an hour change is going to suddenly inspire them to do something different. It's not like the shows have shifted.
I've been out to too many technically abled user's desks to fix problems that they've told me 'it's X, and this is why.' Only to find that they were hedging their facts to support what they'd decided the problem was.
I want to hear symptoms like: 'it's making a *adjective* noise,' 'this program crashes when I do X,' etc.
Let me troubleshoot, that's what I get paid for.
As well, I prefaced it with 'when I show up and find that it's a bad fan in the case,' trying to make the point that sometimes, a techish user may still be barking up the wrong tree, or even misunderstanding the results of the troubleshooting they are doing.
well, when I show up and find that it's a bad fan in the case...
I'd rather have the person who tells me the symptoms without making assumptions about what the cause is.
While I'm not a big windows fan, windows is actually designed with central management in mind, that gets to ridiculously granular control of user's desktop experience.
OSX, it's a painful tack-on. You can't lock a desktop down particularly much (and I don't want to hear about 'with mac's you don't have to, users can't do bad things to themself,' you haven't met my users (grade school kids and worse, their teachers)). Everything is half centrally controlled, half hands on each machine.
I've moved on from that job, supporting PCs and Macs in a school district, so maybe opendirectory and Apple's management tools have grown, but somehow I doubt it.
Who are all these people, and why do I care that they were fired or moved on?
Schools are legally required to filter web access, ssh access to you're home machine is a quick step to an ssh tunnel to sidestep the filter.
Thus no ssh access.
they sure as hell aren't in Japan.
But your 'I'm much smarter than all of you' attitude will get you quickly fired from any company, clear communicating or not. Not because you were wrong in calling people on their fuzzy talk, but because you choose the most aggressive and antagonistic method of doing it.
One user versus a whole company's worth.
One person, with someone who cares about helping them through a systems change, is very different than a whole bunch of people.
There were probably many people who didn't have troubles with the change, but in a large company, the people you hear from as a support tech are the ones having trouble. And after upgrades or upheaval, a lot of the requests are going to seem really dumb. Because people often don't pay attention, don't think about the tools their using, and even more, don't know how it works, but know a very defined set of steps to do their work. When you change those, there will be hell to pay, and it will take the users a long time to unlearn one set of behaviors and learn a new one.
Nope, not at all what they said.
People who use their computers to get things done, ie those who are not tinking with the computer for the sake of it, are generally opposed to having the system they *understand* replaced with ones they do not. No matter if that system in Win/OS9/X/Linux, it is a change in the tools they are comfortable with.
And yes, if you support a large group of people, who are *not stupid*, and change things on them, no matter how much advance warning and explaination you give, when things don't work the way they are used to they will do and say things that seem dumb. Because they aren't thinking about how things have changed, they're thinking about the work their doing and being stymied by the tools having been changed under them.
so?
And this matters why? The topic is 'why did you switch' not 'why isn't linux ready for joe public.'
I could give a flying fuck about linux being for everyone or replacing microsoft. I use it for the freedom it gives me to fix my own problems, to tinker with that which mainstream oses hide from me, and to live true to my beliefs.
I'm not trying to convince everyone to use it, but you seem desperate to convince *someone* that because it's not good for mom and pop, it's not good for anyone.
it takes more effort to write real websites, and those sites will hopefully stand out against the noise floor of blogs.
presentation without content is fluff.
Yeah, lots of blogs are seemingly without content, but a whole lot aren't. I don't give a high flying crap about how nice a website you have, or if you're blog is pretty. If you have content that is of interest to me, and it's regularly updated, I'm gonna be checking it out regularly whether you call it a blog, a web journal, my homepage, or whatever.
real websites! What the hell is a real website?
I bet they can spell, and use proper grammar. And funnily enough, I've seen many an IT admin type get stuck trying something like a mail merge in Word.
People who think they are too good to learn something new are bad for their employers. They sure as hell aren't 'usefull.'
Or weep when he comes back gushing about how the boss loves his new ideas for db efficiency.
Do not presuppose that further up the tree will have any more tech savvy than your boss.
Can he manage you as a team is the question. I've had technically knowledgable managers who couldn't manage for shit, and technically inept managers who kept the IT department running smoothly.
If he can't manage there's a problem. And from your description, it sounds like he's not doing anything.
But a good manager helps with tasking things, interfaces with the company's management (so you don't have to), helps you get your job done, and keeps out of your way so you can do it. It's a bonus if they're technically savvy.
Why is it that everyone seems to think the journalist and CNet are bad, while Google is pristine and lovable? All the information was publicly available, and Google wants to index all publicly available information, no?
Shouldn't we ask whether Google's intent to make everything easily searchable is perhaps not as good as originally thought? Maybe there are things that shouldn't be easily searchable?
I don't use Gnome anymore. Or KDE. Both are big and bloated, and get in the way of what I moved to Linux for. To get things done, faster and easier. Fancy, pretty widgets that slow my machine down do not help me get things done.
I dj at several clubs, hip hop and downtempo mainly.
the pay sucks, but I'm used to that, and it comes with all the free drinks you can handle. A couple gigs a month pays for buying more records (yeah I got cds and mp3s, but nothing beats vinyl for hands on manipulation)
On extra good nights I get picked up on by drunken girls (and occasionally boys).
I also fix the computers at my girlfriend's work for cash under the table, which also goes to records...
A quick search of ebay shows a dozen or so pentium and pentium II laptops for less that $50.
I'd say that qualifies as cheap.
Holy crap, their still using it?
It was dusty and from the mid 80s.
crazy.
I have this on vhs, along with a little lesson plan package.
It wasn't opened when I found it, next to the stack of burned cds of software for the kindergarten computer lab.
"We are stunned that RealNetworks has adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod..."
Uhm, if it weren't for the "tactics and ethics" of two hackers Apple wouldn't exist today.
asshats, with very pretty toys, but asshats none the less.
CCRMA rocks my world, I've played two shows now off a ccrma laptop system.
happiness.