That's the trouble when you've got too many applicants for a job - you have to whittle them down somehow to a number of people that you can interview in a reasonable amount of time.
If you think this is bad, at least they gave you something; most companies I know would just pick a handful of the best applicants to interview, and bin the rest without even replying to them.
I have trouble believing you can't pony up for a single NIC
Why is everyone focusing on the alternatives to the original question, rather than the answer to it?
I know the situation this guy is in - I've done this myself. Trust me: CDs, Network cards, ripping open the cases to get at the disks... none of these are viable options.
In the end it all comes down to time. How much time is it worth to mess around with an obsolete PC? You've got fifty machines to sort out in a day, and they're all different. If you're really lucky, most of them might work, but don't count on it. You simply don't have time to open all these machines up and play with the hardware: if they work, they need an OS installed; if they don't, they get put aside so they can be raided for parts.
All you want is an OS that will boot as many of these machines as possible with the least amount of fuss. Forget whether it looks pretty.
From personal experience, I'd say you'll need more than one, though - you'll want something really simple for the 286's, something a bit better for the 486's, and maybe even an almost modern distro for the P II/III's.
For the ones that really don't like Linux, I would even suggest dropping it, and trying something like FreeDos. That will give you MSDos compatibility (which can be helpful when dealing with the 'unwashed masses' as you put it), and should be fairly straightforward to get up and running.
I think this maybe proves a point about why it's a bad idea to use generic words as your product names (ahem... "word", "office", "windows", et cetera...)
You may be right, but I'm fairly sure I heard both. Also the phrase "googly-eyed", to refer to someone who's staring at something (or someone) to the point you worry their eyes might pop out.
Google are far from the first, and will certainly not be the last company to have their name turned into a common word.
Hoover, Frigidaire, Kleenex, Xerox, and many others have "suffered" the same fate.
Most of them have tried to fight it, and most of them have failed.
But having your name used as a common word can have it's advantages - it is caused by brand awareness, and generally cements it in place. It doesn't garuantee that you'll have complete market share forever, but it can certainly help.
It should also be pointed out that "to google" was already an (informal) verb, meaning "to look" (where did you think the name came from?). Google may quibble over semantics, in that it's mostly being used in a different context these days, but they certainly can't remove it from from the dictionary.
Come off it - I know we were joking about size 10s, but not even the largest of us could claim to be big enough to count as a whole 1% of shoppers at Gap.;-)
But what happens to privacy when everything you buy can be tracked from store floor to door?
If you're really worried about them tracking your RF tags, try mailling them to Siberia or something. If they really are watching you, that ought to get their attention.
*bzzt* rf-control to watcher-one. he is currently travelling on a fed-ex jet to moscow with his latest consignment of razor blades. over" *bzzt* *bzzt* "roger rf-control. will continue tracking and advise, over" *bzzt*
It has always struck me as odd that so many people seem to think it's a good idea to read books on their computer screen. With the eye-strain problems of current display technology, I simply can't see how anyone could even contemplate it.
Until there is a display technology available that doesn't have this problem, you're better off printing it. Rather use up a bit of paper and ink than damage your eyes.
Ah yes. They keep changing their minds about this one don't they?
Contraction: universe will eventually implode. Expansion: universe will expand forever.
Sadly, neither is a particularly pleasant ending. In the first case, we all get sucked into the mother of all black holes, in the second case the universe expands until all available matter is so widly dispersed that it can't interact and form galaxies, stars, planets or life.
But on the bright side, neither scenario will happen within any time frame that we seriously need to worry about. In terms of ancestors and descendants, the number of generations required to get to the time where this would be a problem is an order of magnitude larger than the number of generations since your ancestors were bubbling around in an ancient puddle of mud on a half-formed Earth.
I enjoyed the fact that we have a picture of Einstein's face next to a story that claims to prove him wrong.
Ah, delicious irony.
Oh no! You realise what this means....?
on
Gnome 2.2 Released
·
· Score: 1
Good grief. Software being released a month ahead of schedule!? This mustn't be allowed to happen! If my manager hears of this, he'll start thinking we should try it too.
have you ever tried to overclock a deck or cards? Those babies can heat up pretty good.
Yes, this happened to me too when I tried it, but I solved the problem by making sure that the king of clubs was as far away as possible from the queen of hearts, and removing both the jokers.
Oh, and I really hope you remembered to take the instruction cards out of the pack before you even started?!
Slashdot Mirror
I remember being taught about the ejector blanket...
No! It's called an ejector SEAT - it only looks like a blanket when it lands, and gets completely covered up in an amusing fashion by the parachute.
"incapacitated"... batteries... capacitance... hehehehe!
:-)
do tell - was that an intentional pun?
Cover every surface with mirrors.
Muahahahah! James Bond will never guess which one of you is the real one!
That's the trouble when you've got too many applicants for a job - you have to whittle them down somehow to a number of people that you can interview in a reasonable amount of time.
If you think this is bad, at least they gave you something; most companies I know would just pick a handful of the best applicants to interview, and bin the rest without even replying to them.
I have trouble believing you can't pony up for a single NIC
Why is everyone focusing on the alternatives to the original question, rather than the answer to it?
I know the situation this guy is in - I've done this myself. Trust me: CDs, Network cards, ripping open the cases to get at the disks... none of these are viable options.
In the end it all comes down to time. How much time is it worth to mess around with an obsolete PC? You've got fifty machines to sort out in a day, and they're all different. If you're really lucky, most of them might work, but don't count on it.
You simply don't have time to open all these machines up and play with the hardware: if they work, they need an OS installed; if they don't, they get put aside so they can be raided for parts.
All you want is an OS that will boot as many of these machines as possible with the least amount of fuss. Forget whether it looks pretty.
From personal experience, I'd say you'll need more than one, though - you'll want something really simple for the 286's, something a bit better for the 486's, and maybe even an almost modern distro for the P II/III's.
For the ones that really don't like Linux, I would even suggest dropping it, and trying something like FreeDos. That will give you MSDos compatibility (which can be helpful when dealing with the 'unwashed masses' as you put it), and should be fairly straightforward to get up and running.
Who are these 'technology elite'?
Not sure... but I'm certain that David Brabem and Ian Bell should be included.
Oh, and I think there's also a cheat that can get you Elite status without having to actually kill for it.
Windows operating system source code could damage national security.
Well, I'm sure they won't open *that* part of the code.... (*cough* *cough* secret backdoors *cough* *cough*)
I think this maybe proves a point about why it's a bad idea to use generic words as your product names (ahem... "word", "office", "windows", et cetera...)
I think you mean ogle
You may be right, but I'm fairly sure I heard both. Also the phrase "googly-eyed", to refer to someone who's staring at something (or someone) to the point you worry their eyes might pop out.
Google are far from the first, and will certainly not be the last company to have their name turned into a common word.
Hoover, Frigidaire, Kleenex, Xerox, and many others have "suffered" the same fate.
Most of them have tried to fight it, and most of them have failed.
But having your name used as a common word can have it's advantages - it is caused by brand awareness, and generally cements it in place. It doesn't garuantee that you'll have complete market share forever, but it can certainly help.
It should also be pointed out that "to google" was already an (informal) verb, meaning "to look" (where did you think the name came from?). Google may quibble over semantics, in that it's mostly being used in a different context these days, but they certainly can't remove it from from the dictionary.
Maybe you are the one percent?
;-)
Come off it - I know we were joking about size 10s, but not even the largest of us could claim to be big enough to count as a whole 1% of shoppers at Gap.
remembering to enter the *back* door when you have credit cards on your person
Or through the window.
I mean c'mon - doesn't everyone do that already? Otherwise you'd have to keep replacing that hair that you taped to the doorframe.
But what happens to privacy when everything you buy can be tracked from store floor to door?
If you're really worried about them tracking your RF tags, try mailling them to Siberia or something. If they really are watching you, that ought to get their attention.
*bzzt* rf-control to watcher-one. he is currently travelling on a fed-ex jet to moscow with his latest consignment of razor blades. over" *bzzt*
*bzzt* "roger rf-control. will continue tracking and advise, over" *bzzt*
It has always struck me as odd that so many people seem to think it's a good idea to read books on their computer screen. With the eye-strain problems of current display technology, I simply can't see how anyone could even contemplate it.
Until there is a display technology available that doesn't have this problem, you're better off printing it. Rather use up a bit of paper and ink than damage your eyes.
This hasn't been a problem for me, since I never use the right shift key anyways.
Yeah? So how did you get those capital 'T's in that comment, then?
There's always the one about the Californian man who invented a robotic parking attendant...
He called it the Silicon valet.
Ah yes. They keep changing their minds about this one don't they?
:-)
Contraction: universe will eventually implode.
Expansion: universe will expand forever.
Sadly, neither is a particularly pleasant ending. In the first case, we all get sucked into the mother of all black holes, in the second case the universe expands until all available matter is so widly dispersed that it can't interact and form galaxies, stars, planets or life.
But on the bright side, neither scenario will happen within any time frame that we seriously need to worry about. In terms of ancestors and descendants, the number of generations required to get to the time where this would be a problem is an order of magnitude larger than the number of generations since your ancestors were bubbling around in an ancient puddle of mud on a half-formed Earth.
Comforting thought, eh?
I enjoyed the fact that we have a picture of Einstein's face next to a story that claims to prove him wrong.
Ah, delicious irony.
Good grief. Software being released a month ahead of schedule!? This mustn't be allowed to happen! If my manager hears of this, he'll start thinking we should try it too.
Ties in nicely with the story today about radioactive Christmas trees being sold by russian businessmen.
have you ever tried to overclock a deck or cards? Those babies can heat up pretty good.
Yes, this happened to me too when I tried it, but I solved the problem by making sure that the king of clubs was as far away as possible from the queen of hearts, and removing both the jokers.
Oh, and I really hope you remembered to take the instruction cards out of the pack before you even started?!
And in other news...
Hewlett Packard have sued Saddam Hussein, claiming that the name of his country is an "obvious copy" of the name of their iPaq product...
If we want to start being humane to our development environments, I can think of a few that need to be put out of their misery.
Oh, and will you look at that - an ad for Visual Studio at the top of this article! How ironic.
Free Kevin..... .. ... inside every pack of cornflakes.
- very subtle :)
- No, just fairly obscure
There's a difference between subtlety and just being obscure, but it's quite a subtle difference that can easily be obscured.