I left theatres about 10 years ago, and at that point, "projectionists" were just overworked "managers". I really enjoyed seeing most movies before poeple were awake, but I was just a sucker...
Deterence! Thank you. I was trying to remember thename of that movie as I was writing this comment. It is a curiously applicable movie and fairly enjoyable on a slow night with good refreshment.
LOL - yeah one would think we design such a backdoor into those weapons. On the other hand that would not make them vary marketable to other countries or the Black Market. And remember, profit is more important than lives!
One thing I really hope we learned first from Vietnam and second from the Russian attack on Afghanastan is that you cannot fight unconventional forces with conventional forces. The Afghans have a very well oiled guerilla force. The Soviets spent 6 years fruitlessly trying to fight an army that wasn't really there.
It wasn't until 1986 when the soviets realized they needed to match their forces and began sending in Spetznatz (Special Forces) units instead of traditional forces. They were tremendously sucessful, and by some accounts pretty much had the war won. At that point Reagan stepped in and gave the Afghan forces American Technology, principally lots of Stinger missles. New weapons were enough to turn the tide of the war and the Soviets spent the next two years in a somewhat controlled retreat.
Be careful who you think your friends are, as our own Stinger missles are currently considered the biggest threat to the safety of American planes in Afghanastan.
Our targeted strikes are merely to knock out known defenses and to destabilize the infrastructure. The only way we can flush out their military will be with on the ground special forces.
The biggest thing that I fear is that the US will renig on their commitment to rebuild Afghanastan once we are done blowing it up. If we do not make the investment to rebuild Afghanastan to a stable and capable society, then we will merely be back where we began.
Remember that's how the Taliban came to power. Afghanastan was obliterated by the Soviets. It was an Anarchistic country dominated by local warlords, and ripe for a unifying force to take brutal control. Starving and desperate populations are the breeding ground for violent dictators: Witness numerous 20th Century european countries (names withheld to avoid invoking net flame degredation rules:).
I was really amused sitting at my desk going over a machine with 2 60GB IBM drives where one just goes CLICK CLICK CLICK and won't even post, and I look up at slashdot and there's the story.
2 drives, both dlta-307060, both made in Hungary AUG-2000. Unfortunately I think we have over a 100 of these drives in production. It's a good thing the company is dead, maybe I should feel bad for the people that are going to buy them at auction next week.
Yes - voting is the most powerful force in a democratic society, now I really wish that we lived in one. I'm not sure how to best describe the current state of the US. A schizoprenic oligarchy? Politics is very dominated by the incumbent parties. To be a candidate you need to be selected by the party, or be quite wealthy. Because of the dominance, The incumbent parties set the agenda for political discussion, focusing on very narrow, well tested "positions" that are determined to most likely swing middle ground voters. The actual differences in the current crops of well groomed, focus-group honed candidates is laughable.
Don't forget the experience of John McCain, who learned not to fight the system, the poster boy was chosen, even though he consistenly proved to have a much higher appeal with general voters, he couldn't swing the party stalwarts voting for the poster boy.
Any sort of revolution must be the absolute last resort in any political discussion. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned in how ultra conservative christians staged a grass-roots takeover of the republican party in the 80's.
Hopefully we will never give away the most important right the founding fathers gave us in fulfilling our duty, the means to protect ourselves from our government. (insert your favorite cliche here - but yes, for the record I am a licensed firearm owner) Maybe the government was right all along in classifying encryption as a munition, it certainly is a very effective tool in protecting us from the prying eyes and ears of the government.
Vote, educate your representatives, educate your neighbors, that's by far the best way we have of maintaining a free and open society!
It's good to see that many people have a sound head on their shoulders and are not engaging in over-reaching knee-jerk reactions.
Find the time to write your congresscritter, but do it when you are not emotional. Tell them that security research is not cracking, that cracking is not terrorism (if you don't take the time to properly secure your systems, you need to take some liability!), tell them that crypto is free speech, it is the ability of people to have a private conversation! A conversation without big ears, between a limited group of people. Then let the letter sit overnight and read it in fresh light.
If you really want them to listen, take the time to print out your letter, after you have sent it online, address some envelopes and send them hard copy!
If you really wan to stir some feathers, then remind them of the declaration of independence - "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security"
If you are looking for work in the private sector (corporations) a Ph.D. is a complete waste. Salary studies consistently show that people in tech jobs with a tech bachelor's and an MBA earn roughly twice as much as PhD's. People with Tech Masters come in a close second.
People with PhDs in Tech jobs average somewhere between high school graduates and college dropouts in salary. Yes there are excpetions, but as a rule a Masters degree is the top of the line.
Remeber the old sayings about PhD? Piled Higher and Deeper; and Someone who knows more and more about less and less.
Chris
Re:this thing is fascinating - Over 100K attacks..
on
Code Redux
·
· Score: 2
Granted I have 3 Class C blocks at Exodus, but since 00:00:01 PST on Sunday I have seen 107,581 port 80 attempts. They currently seem to running at about 45/minute.
I would give you bonus points for having the right tools and knowing when to use them. I would then ask a second question for you to answer without using the PALM so that I can see if you really understand the math and also to see how you think.
I hire based on personality more than technical skills. I want people with good technical skills, but more importantly I want people who are always learning, thinking on their feet, and not afraid to search for answers or help. People who are always re-evaluating systems in light of new knowledge are less likely to get caught by surprise, and more likely to find subtle security holes we missed on previous evaluations.
I tend to ask a lot of open ended questions to get the candidates talking. One of my favorites (lately) is "A new peice of software is placed on your desk. How would you go about implementing it into production?" These types of questions show you thought process, willingness to read manuals, consult help, and generally pay attention to details.
I have made some critical misjudements on people by not putting enough weight on tough technical questions. For networking candidates I have found the best watermark is to give them a non-standard netmask (like/29) and an IP address and then ask them to tell me the network and broadcast addresses.
Longer interviews are better. I won't go to work for a company unless I have been through 4-8 hours of interviews and had lots of opportunities to question the company as much as they are questioning me. I have generally found that my job satisfaction has been directly related to the amount of time spent interviewing, but that's just MHO.
Actually the standard for Player's Club type stuff is a minimum bet of $25/hand. The other magic number is 4 hours per day that the average gambler spends at the tables while in Vegas. Pulling a number out of the air of 40 hands/hour, the casino figures you are putting $1000/hour at risk, or $4000 per 4 hour session. Depending on the game they expect that they will get 2-4% or $80-$160 from that session, and they will comp you 30-50% of that profit, so you should walk away with a $40-$60 meal comp.
You don't use your "Player's Card" in the restaraunts, but what you do is charge it to your room. You will always be told to charge everyhting to your room, so they can track, and comp you on it.
I just got back from a 3 day weekend in Vegas, all completely comped: meals, rooms, drinks. We ate and drank well, and charged everything to our room. When we were checking out we were told that our host had checked my account and comped everything except the tips (the casino never comps tips). So our three day weekend cost us about $30 + plane fare.
To make the whole thing better, I won enough money to cover all out of pocket expenses (taxis, limos, etc). I fairly consistently come back from Vegas with just as much money as when I left.
The counterintuitive thing that people don't get about comps is that casino will comp you more when you are winning. You can bet heavily and lose and not get a comp, yet bet mildly and win and you will get a comp. People think that Casino's comp you for losing. Casinos know that people who consistently lose will not really want to come back.
But by creating that instant "High Roller" experience as quoted in the article, people who are winning will want to come back even more. People who are losing mildly, but getting comped and treated like royalty are more likely to write off the loss and not care.
The last peice, 2000 years ahead, was one of the most emotionally charged and draining points of the entire movie. That was the ending that Kubrik wanted, though he probably would have made the new mechas a bit different.
I was really astonished by Speilbergs ability to imitate Kubrik's style. The entire movie looks and feels like a Kubrik, from the sudden 270 degree plot twists, the slow, long visuals, and the entertwined plots.
I won't argue that the movie could have ended with the Blue Faerie and been great, but the last fifteen minutes was an emotional rollercoaster that made it hard for me to get out of my seat.
You're not going to see this in any Slurpee or other embedded type machine. The more complex and interesting machines of this type all use PLC's (Programmable Logic Controllers). Small base model PLC's can be had for $50-$100. You program them in "Ladder Logic", which is amazingly friendly for machine language. They are actually really cool.
For embedded controls like this you don't need fast or powerful. You need rock solid reliability, a lot of tolerance for abuse, and a very simplistic programming language that makes it difficult or impossible to do something stupid. Of course if you want something with more pizzazz, like a graphical screen and touch control, I can see this little Linux device fitting right in.
Couldn't help it. On topic - Cisco TAC is amazing (of course I have a lot of friends either there or graduates of TAC). OTOH it doesn't hurt that I am a block away from the main campus. I once had a TAC engineer offer to drive the part over to me when a 6509 sup1a failed.
The more I think about this the less I agree with the questioner. The company is not doing anything to hold the employees back. The employees know full and well who the competitors are and if they were interested in leaving, they would contact them.
I do think it is unfair that the employees are not getting personal credit for their work. If, note the IF, they do get full credits when the game is released, I don't see this as unfair. when you are in major crunch time few things ruin your day like the non-stop ring of moronic recruiters who are sure they can offer something better.
If you don't like your job, leave! Sometimes people can't leave though. My girlfriend works in a very specialized security position, but is currently in the middle of a workers-comp claim and can't leave her job without giving up the claim. The company has abused her through this for over 2 years and pays her 40% less than her co-workers because she can't leave. As soon as the legal paperwork is settled she is sending out her resume to every competitor they have.
The message I have is that if the people get the credit when the game is released then more power to them and the company - they will get poached when the game is _finished_ with major kudos, and until then they don't have to put up with 13 calls a day from pain in the ass recruiters.
* not all recruiters suck, but they do tend to be annoying.
Escrow of the source code is not the answer when the ASP doesn't have the source in the first place. What you want is an escrow of the servers themselves. This is assuming that you did the due diligence to choose an ASP that houses each of their customers on individual servers.
When you go with higher end ASP's you not only get dedicated servers, but if they have a clue about security, all of you servers are fully seperated from all of the other customers, physically, logically, and network wise.
You are dead on about the value equation of an ASP. You are hiring a company because they know everything about the application and how to get it working for you. Many "ASP"'s try and be eveything to everyone and can't pull it off, becuase there is too much difference between business models.
Smart ASP's are vertically focused so that they already have the application tuned to the buisiness model.
One ASP that I work with has taken a standard ERP implementation (average is 18-36 months and 15-30 million $) and can know turn it on in 30 days with full functionality. They can do this because they tend to know more about the customers business model than the customer does because they only work with one type of customer.
Server escrow is a key idea as an exit strategy in the contract. If you want out early you have the option of buying your servers and pulling them offsite. If the company tanks you get your servers (admittedly much harder if the company goes into bancruptcy and has their assets frozen).
Strategy number 2 is escrow of the backup tapes. I have many customers that get full backups of all of their systems each week. If the ASP tanks they just buy the proper hardware and then they can do a full restore from their tapes, tweak network and DNS settings, and they are back to life. Not pretty, but it could be done in less than a week.
ASP is not a bad thing, but it is very specialized, and YMMV. Be careful choosing an ASP, but don't mistake the value that they can provide.
The hurdle that prevents people from using encryption and good security is time and knowledge. It took a lot of effort to get WEP turned on where I work because an understaffed IT department had to do it.
The funny part is we use 3DES hardware VPN devices for PTP T1 lines, but that is done by another department that has the time and materials to implement strong security. And they wonder why we don't trust the corporate network?
Tapping unencrypted lines is easy, one of our security people was trained in tapping fiber cables by DOD in '83. Ask how many people think that their private fiber links are truly secure?
Rather than patching together PGP/GPG, SSL, and SSH, I would strongly recommend you spend your efforts implementing IPSEC instead.
If you can find them, the Inifinty Studio Monitors have a much richer, broader sound then the reference series. I lucked out on a pair of SM-155 (now SM-255) for about $400 at Costco.
The overall sound is gorgeous, and the volume levels well definately get you in trouble, I had to move into a house after I got these.
If you get the Studio Monitors make sure to catch the matching Video center channel - also a steal at like $150 from crutchfield.
I'd love to see you explain that to the cops over in the lovely Socialist Republic of Kalifornia...
Local governments well fight very hard to hold onto every last scrap of power they can get their hands on. The only technologies that can save you from overzealous local governments are your neighbor's video camera.
Ultimately the only technology that can protect your right of free speech is the gun. That is why the second amendment follows the first.
In the company that I work for the managers are copied on all pages.
This is easy to do in our environment because the pages are generated by a trouble ticket system.
People are text paged on high or critical tickets. Managers are copied on all pages to people beneath them. Add it all up and yes, the CEO gets paged every couple of hours.
Paging the manager every time a tech gets paged is a great way to make sure that management is aware of the on-call work load.
Which is why I mentioned that there is a disparity in job to job comparisons, but when you look across all employed people there is a much, much greater disparity. I am theorizing that the reason for the overall disparity is life choices.
As for job to job disparity, I do find that fairly offensive. I am firm believer in equal pay for _equal_work_. Remember though, it's quality that counts, not quantity.
Maybe that's the biggest overall problem in the workaholic rat race - people confusing quantity with quality...
What's the news here? I didn't move to the valley because I like paying $2500/month in rent. I plan to move out in a few years to somewhere I can afford to live.
These are all about balance of choices. The better paying (remember risk/reward?) and more challenging jobs generally require more dedication.
People complain about the gender wage gap. There are genuine problems here with pay disparity, but a significant percentage is probably based on life choices.
Most of my female friends when faced with a choice between high pay and long hours versus reasonable pay and reasonable hours make a life choice decision towards a reasonable job (40-45 hours/week).
Most of my male friends faced with the same options look at the higher pay and jump on it.
There are no absolutes and all men and women are different. I am suggesting that, in general, men prefer pay over lifestyle, women prefer lifestyle over pay. The cynic would say that men still think that money can buy lifestyle.
So make your choice... just understand that you do have a choice.
Slashdot Mirror
I have loved every show, including all of the DVD. I hope this makes it to reality.
I left theatres about 10 years ago, and at that point, "projectionists" were just overworked "managers". I really enjoyed seeing most movies before poeple were awake, but I was just a sucker...
Chris
Deterence! Thank you. I was trying to remember thename of that movie as I was writing this comment. It is a curiously applicable movie and fairly enjoyable on a slow night with good refreshment.
Chris
LOL - yeah one would think we design such a backdoor into those weapons. On the other hand that would not make them vary marketable to other countries or the Black Market. And remember, profit is more important than lives!
Chris
One thing I really hope we learned first from Vietnam and second from the Russian attack on Afghanastan is that you cannot fight unconventional forces with conventional forces. The Afghans have a very well oiled guerilla force. The Soviets spent 6 years fruitlessly trying to fight an army that wasn't really there.
:).
It wasn't until 1986 when the soviets realized they needed to match their forces and began sending in Spetznatz (Special Forces) units instead of traditional forces. They were tremendously sucessful, and by some accounts pretty much had the war won. At that point Reagan stepped in and gave the Afghan forces American Technology, principally lots of Stinger missles. New weapons were enough to turn the tide of the war and the Soviets spent the next two years in a somewhat controlled retreat.
Be careful who you think your friends are, as our own Stinger missles are currently considered the biggest threat to the safety of American planes in Afghanastan.
Our targeted strikes are merely to knock out known defenses and to destabilize the infrastructure. The only way we can flush out their military will be with on the ground special forces.
The biggest thing that I fear is that the US will renig on their commitment to rebuild Afghanastan once we are done blowing it up. If we do not make the investment to rebuild Afghanastan to a stable and capable society, then we will merely be back where we began.
Remember that's how the Taliban came to power. Afghanastan was obliterated by the Soviets. It was an Anarchistic country dominated by local warlords, and ripe for a unifying force to take brutal control. Starving and desperate populations are the breeding ground for violent dictators: Witness numerous 20th Century european countries (names withheld to avoid invoking net flame degredation rules
Enjoy,
Chris
I was really amused sitting at my desk going over a machine with 2 60GB IBM drives where one just goes CLICK CLICK CLICK and won't even post, and I look up at slashdot and there's the story.
2 drives, both dlta-307060, both made in Hungary AUG-2000. Unfortunately I think we have over a 100 of these drives in production. It's a good thing the company is dead, maybe I should feel bad for the people that are going to buy them at auction next week.
Chris
Yes - voting is the most powerful force in a democratic society, now I really wish that we lived in one. I'm not sure how to best describe the current state of the US. A schizoprenic oligarchy? Politics is very dominated by the incumbent parties. To be a candidate you need to be selected by the party, or be quite wealthy. Because of the dominance, The incumbent parties set the agenda for political discussion, focusing on very narrow, well tested "positions" that are determined to most likely swing middle ground voters. The actual differences in the current crops of well groomed, focus-group honed candidates is laughable.
Don't forget the experience of John McCain, who learned not to fight the system, the poster boy was chosen, even though he consistenly proved to have a much higher appeal with general voters, he couldn't swing the party stalwarts voting for the poster boy.
Any sort of revolution must be the absolute last resort in any political discussion. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned in how ultra conservative christians staged a grass-roots takeover of the republican party in the 80's.
Hopefully we will never give away the most important right the founding fathers gave us in fulfilling our duty, the means to protect ourselves from our government. (insert your favorite cliche here - but yes, for the record I am a licensed firearm owner) Maybe the government was right all along in classifying encryption as a munition, it certainly is a very effective tool in protecting us from the prying eyes and ears of the government.
Vote, educate your representatives, educate your neighbors, that's by far the best way we have of maintaining a free and open society!
Chris
It's good to see that many people have a sound head on their shoulders and are not engaging in over-reaching knee-jerk reactions.
Find the time to write your congresscritter, but do it when you are not emotional. Tell them that security research is not cracking, that cracking is not terrorism (if you don't take the time to properly secure your systems, you need to take some liability!), tell them that crypto is free speech, it is the ability of people to have a private conversation! A conversation without big ears, between a limited group of people. Then let the letter sit overnight and read it in fresh light.
If you really want them to listen, take the time to print out your letter, after you have sent it online, address some envelopes and send them hard copy!
If you really wan to stir some feathers, then remind them of the declaration of independence - "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security"
Chris
If you are looking for work in the private sector (corporations) a Ph.D. is a complete waste. Salary studies consistently show that people in tech jobs with a tech bachelor's and an MBA earn roughly twice as much as PhD's. People with Tech Masters come in a close second.
People with PhDs in Tech jobs average somewhere between high school graduates and college dropouts in salary. Yes there are excpetions, but as a rule a Masters degree is the top of the line.
Remeber the old sayings about PhD? Piled Higher and Deeper; and Someone who knows more and more about less and less.
Chris
Granted I have 3 Class C blocks at Exodus, but since 00:00:01 PST on Sunday I have seen 107,581 port 80 attempts. They currently seem to running at about 45/minute.
Chris
I would give you bonus points for having the right tools and knowing when to use them. I would then ask a second question for you to answer without using the PALM so that I can see if you really understand the math and also to see how you think.
I hire based on personality more than technical skills. I want people with good technical skills, but more importantly I want people who are always learning, thinking on their feet, and not afraid to search for answers or help. People who are always re-evaluating systems in light of new knowledge are less likely to get caught by surprise, and more likely to find subtle security holes we missed on previous evaluations.
Chris
I tend to ask a lot of open ended questions to get the candidates talking. One of my favorites (lately) is "A new peice of software is placed on your desk. How would you go about implementing it into production?" These types of questions show you thought process, willingness to read manuals, consult help, and generally pay attention to details.
/29) and an IP address and then ask them to tell me the network and broadcast addresses.
I have made some critical misjudements on people by not putting enough weight on tough technical questions. For networking candidates I have found the best watermark is to give them a non-standard netmask (like
Longer interviews are better. I won't go to work for a company unless I have been through 4-8 hours of interviews and had lots of opportunities to question the company as much as they are questioning me. I have generally found that my job satisfaction has been directly related to the amount of time spent interviewing, but that's just MHO.
Chris
Actually the standard for Player's Club type stuff is a minimum bet of $25/hand. The other magic number is 4 hours per day that the average gambler spends at the tables while in Vegas. Pulling a number out of the air of 40 hands/hour, the casino figures you are putting $1000/hour at risk, or $4000 per 4 hour session. Depending on the game they expect that they will get 2-4% or $80-$160 from that session, and they will comp you 30-50% of that profit, so you should walk away with a $40-$60 meal comp.
Chris
You don't use your "Player's Card" in the restaraunts, but what you do is charge it to your room. You will always be told to charge everyhting to your room, so they can track, and comp you on it.
I just got back from a 3 day weekend in Vegas, all completely comped: meals, rooms, drinks. We ate and drank well, and charged everything to our room. When we were checking out we were told that our host had checked my account and comped everything except the tips (the casino never comps tips). So our three day weekend cost us about $30 + plane fare.
To make the whole thing better, I won enough money to cover all out of pocket expenses (taxis, limos, etc). I fairly consistently come back from Vegas with just as much money as when I left.
The counterintuitive thing that people don't get about comps is that casino will comp you more when you are winning. You can bet heavily and lose and not get a comp, yet bet mildly and win and you will get a comp. People think that Casino's comp you for losing. Casinos know that people who consistently lose will not really want to come back.
But by creating that instant "High Roller" experience as quoted in the article, people who are winning will want to come back even more. People who are losing mildly, but getting comped and treated like royalty are more likely to write off the loss and not care.
Chris
The last peice, 2000 years ahead, was one of the most emotionally charged and draining points of the entire movie. That was the ending that Kubrik wanted, though he probably would have made the new mechas a bit different.
I was really astonished by Speilbergs ability to imitate Kubrik's style. The entire movie looks and feels like a Kubrik, from the sudden 270 degree plot twists, the slow, long visuals, and the entertwined plots.
I won't argue that the movie could have ended with the Blue Faerie and been great, but the last fifteen minutes was an emotional rollercoaster that made it hard for me to get out of my seat.
Chris
You're not going to see this in any Slurpee or other embedded type machine. The more complex and interesting machines of this type all use PLC's (Programmable Logic Controllers). Small base model PLC's can be had for $50-$100. You program them in "Ladder Logic", which is amazingly friendly for machine language. They are actually really cool.
For embedded controls like this you don't need fast or powerful. You need rock solid reliability, a lot of tolerance for abuse, and a very simplistic programming language that makes it difficult or impossible to do something stupid. Of course if you want something with more pizzazz, like a graphical screen and touch control, I can see this little Linux device fitting right in.
Chris
> Reality corrupted. Reboot universe? (Y/N)
Shouldn't that be:
Reality corrupted. Reboot universe? [confirm]
Couldn't help it. On topic - Cisco TAC is amazing (of course I have a lot of friends either there or graduates of TAC). OTOH it doesn't hurt that I am a block away from the main campus. I once had a TAC engineer offer to drive the part over to me when a 6509 sup1a failed.
- Chris
The more I think about this the less I agree with the questioner. The company is not doing anything to hold the employees back. The employees know full and well who the competitors are and if they were interested in leaving, they would contact them.
I do think it is unfair that the employees are not getting personal credit for their work. If, note the IF, they do get full credits when the game is released, I don't see this as unfair. when you are in major crunch time few things ruin your day like the non-stop ring of moronic recruiters who are sure they can offer something better.
If you don't like your job, leave! Sometimes people can't leave though. My girlfriend works in a very specialized security position, but is currently in the middle of a workers-comp claim and can't leave her job without giving up the claim. The company has abused her through this for over 2 years and pays her 40% less than her co-workers because she can't leave. As soon as the legal paperwork is settled she is sending out her resume to every competitor they have.
The message I have is that if the people get the credit when the game is released then more power to them and the company - they will get poached when the game is _finished_ with major kudos, and until then they don't have to put up with 13 calls a day from pain in the ass recruiters.
* not all recruiters suck, but they do tend to be annoying.
- Chris
Escrow of the source code is not the answer when the ASP doesn't have the source in the first place. What you want is an escrow of the servers themselves. This is assuming that you did the due diligence to choose an ASP that houses each of their customers on individual servers.
When you go with higher end ASP's you not only get dedicated servers, but if they have a clue about security, all of you servers are fully seperated from all of the other customers, physically, logically, and network wise.
You are dead on about the value equation of an ASP. You are hiring a company because they know everything about the application and how to get it working for you. Many "ASP"'s try and be eveything to everyone and can't pull it off, becuase there is too much difference between business models.
Smart ASP's are vertically focused so that they already have the application tuned to the buisiness model.
One ASP that I work with has taken a standard ERP implementation (average is 18-36 months and 15-30 million $) and can know turn it on in 30 days with full functionality. They can do this because they tend to know more about the customers business model than the customer does because they only work with one type of customer.
Server escrow is a key idea as an exit strategy in the contract. If you want out early you have the option of buying your servers and pulling them offsite. If the company tanks you get your servers (admittedly much harder if the company goes into bancruptcy and has their assets frozen).
Strategy number 2 is escrow of the backup tapes. I have many customers that get full backups of all of their systems each week. If the ASP tanks they just buy the proper hardware and then they can do a full restore from their tapes, tweak network and DNS settings, and they are back to life. Not pretty, but it could be done in less than a week.
ASP is not a bad thing, but it is very specialized, and YMMV. Be careful choosing an ASP, but don't mistake the value that they can provide.
e-mail for more info: chris@pugrud.net
Chris
The hurdle that prevents people from using encryption and good security is time and knowledge. It took a lot of effort to get WEP turned on where I work because an understaffed IT department had to do it.
The funny part is we use 3DES hardware VPN devices for PTP T1 lines, but that is done by another department that has the time and materials to implement strong security. And they wonder why we don't trust the corporate network?
Tapping unencrypted lines is easy, one of our security people was trained in tapping fiber cables by DOD in '83. Ask how many people think that their private fiber links are truly secure?
Rather than patching together PGP/GPG, SSL, and SSH, I would strongly recommend you spend your efforts implementing IPSEC instead.
Chris
If you can find them, the Inifinty Studio Monitors have a much richer, broader sound then the reference series. I lucked out on a pair of SM-155 (now SM-255) for about $400 at Costco.
The overall sound is gorgeous, and the volume levels well definately get you in trouble, I had to move into a house after I got these.
If you get the Studio Monitors make sure to catch the matching Video center channel - also a steal at like $150 from crutchfield.
Chris
If you ever make it over to the US:
I'd love to see you explain that to the cops over in the lovely Socialist Republic of Kalifornia...
Local governments well fight very hard to hold onto every last scrap of power they can get their hands on. The only technologies that can save you from overzealous local governments are your neighbor's video camera.
Ultimately the only technology that can protect your right of free speech is the gun. That is why the second amendment follows the first.
Enjoy,
Chris
In the company that I work for the managers are copied on all pages.
This is easy to do in our environment because the pages are generated by a trouble ticket system.
People are text paged on high or critical tickets. Managers are copied on all pages to people beneath them. Add it all up and yes, the CEO gets paged every couple of hours.
Paging the manager every time a tech gets paged is a great way to make sure that management is aware of the on-call work load.
Chris
Which is why I mentioned that there is a disparity in job to job comparisons, but when you look across all employed people there is a much, much greater disparity. I am theorizing that the reason for the overall disparity is life choices.
As for job to job disparity, I do find that fairly offensive. I am firm believer in equal pay for _equal_work_. Remember though, it's quality that counts, not quantity.
Maybe that's the biggest overall problem in the workaholic rat race - people confusing quantity with quality...
Chris
What's the news here? I didn't move to the valley because I like paying $2500/month in rent. I plan to move out in a few years to somewhere I can afford to live.
These are all about balance of choices. The better paying (remember risk/reward?) and more challenging jobs generally require more dedication.
People complain about the gender wage gap. There are genuine problems here with pay disparity, but a significant percentage is probably based on life choices.
Most of my female friends when faced with a choice between high pay and long hours versus reasonable pay and reasonable hours make a life choice decision towards a reasonable job (40-45 hours/week).
Most of my male friends faced with the same options look at the higher pay and jump on it.
There are no absolutes and all men and women are different. I am suggesting that, in general, men prefer pay over lifestyle, women prefer lifestyle over pay. The cynic would say that men still think that money can buy lifestyle.
So make your choice... just understand that you do have a choice.
Chris