She looked at me blankly and said "What's HTML?". I was so shocked that I just said 'uh... hope I interview against you...'
Not to be a jerk, but this gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. The people that are in it for the money, but actually suck at it find out that they can't cut it when competing against other people that are competent. And then back to school with them. Leaves room for "the rest of us" that know what we're doing. It doesn't always pan out that way, I know, but I'd like to think it does.
So get certified. Having those little groups of letters on your resume does wonders for opening doors. If it only takes six weeks, get it done. It doesn't cost much.
Have you checked Event Viewer? Microsoft does pretty extensive error reporting there. And you can figure out what is causing the problem from the details. Do a google search. Check the Microsoft support pages.
Lots of people just restart their machines and say, "Oh well, it's just Windows. Fucking Microsoft." and never investigate. The vast majority of errors that I find on Windows, and I admin close to a thousand machines, are from either malfunctioning hardware or misbehaving software, not Windows.
Granted, 95, 98, ME were terrible, and even NT to some extent, but from 2000 and on Microsoft has really cleaned up their act. This constant blaming of Microsoft just has to end. Putting our heads in the sand and not realizing the truth gives the impression that we are the ones spreading the FUD.
tell me when your windows box reliably plays games and maintains more than a few days at best of uptime
I am a hard core gamer. I stress my computer all the time. My Windows 2000 box for gaming at home has uptimes measured in months and that's only because I'll boot into Red Hat sometimes. I push my machines all the time. Lots of Gaming, VMWare and MySQL on Windows. Apache, MySQL, and coding on Linux. They're all solid.
When I get together with people for LAN parties (to game) other people have problems. Constantly. Why? Because they bought the cheapest hardware they could, and they're paying the price now in stability.
Of course, there's no need to mention Microsoft's inability to create a stable system.
What exactly is the purpose behind this? Why was it put in here? People are going to need to grow up if people in "our" circle want to be taken seriously. I've used Windows 2000 and Windows XP both. They crash as much as my Red Hat and Debian boxes do. Never. They are all rock solid.
I work for a public school system. We have a class at the High School that teaches and certifies for A+ (I know, I know). They have all sorts of problems getting stuff to work and to get a system stable. In Windows and Linux.
It isn't because they are high schoolers.
It isn't because they are "just learning".
It's because they buy really shitty hardware. They look for the best cost, and they get their hardware from some loser manufacturer that has fucked up drivers and horrible quality control.
Properly maintained boxes with quality hardware in them just don't crash anymore. Programs maybe, but not systems.
Christ, people, this has been beat to death! Microsoft has a great product for an OS now! Get back to making something better than them instead trying to convince yourself that Microsoft is delusional.
In most cases, I don't believe a man's self esteem will allow him to read a book for a year and say afterwards "That was a load of crap". They inherently begin to believe what they are reading not only has value, but only someone who spends their life reading it can understand it.
Kind of like how when I left the movie theater last night I was disappointed with Reloaded. But come the next morning, I began reading all the stuff here on slashdot, and suddenly I'm convinced that there was stuff there that I missed, and that I need to see it again.
Perhaps my mind just needs to convince itself that the reason that I didn't especially like it was because I didn't understand it. Yeah, that's it. I'm too clueless, cause the Bros. W would never steer me wrong....right?
It's like you're having a garage sale, all your stuff sitting on your front lawn, inviting everyone to come by and take a look. In addition you lay out a nice sack of Marijuana and a cop walks by, I guess if he busts you without a search warrant it's illegal search and seizure?
Do a lot of people actually keep up with all the new video card technology by buying every new product release?
Some people do. It doesn't take that many to buy into it in order for it to pay off, because the cards at that point have a ridiculous margin on them. I started a video card upgrade plan that seems to work well.
Beginning with Nvidia's RivaTNT, I skip a generation and then wait 6 months after release. You don't feel *all* of the brunt of the big prices, since there are a bunch of "Ultra" versions by that point, and I don't have any trouble running games in the time between. I also don't buy the latest games right away either, and prefer to let a patch or two come out.
I haven't had a problem yet with running games.
Re:So what's new/unique about this book?
on
Dancing Barefoot
·
· Score: 1, Redundant
Seriously, my time is pretty valuable. I only read stuff that I think will provide me with something fresh and new.
The novelty of getting a comment moderated a "5" wears off. Just like the pride of having "Excellent" Karma eventually wears off. When I got to "Excellent" Karma, at first I felt my life was complete. I was Wrong. ; )
It cannot be stressed enough how important those buzzwords and acronyms are. TCO. ROI. Risk. If you want to get a certain OSS software package to be put in, you need to make a case for it. Simply saying "This OSS x is tons better than this company's y software. w00t." is going to get you nowhere. They don't think in those terms. As a poster above said, once you start dealing with the people that handle the cash flow on their terms, and in their language, your chances of success greatly increase.
My experience first hand was this:
I work in a public school district, and there was interest in people using Adobe Photoshop to work on graphics in web design and art. I brought up the fact that we could use GIMP instead. "We'd save money since it's free!" I was shot down.
Then, I did a fairly simple TCO analysis comparing the two. We wouldn't use any Adobe support anyway. GIMP has a nearly non-existent learning curve for what they wanted it to do, and the total cost of training would be about the same, since users didn't know much about either piece of software. Perfect. Then I went back.
We're now deploying GIMP this summer, to many more users than we would have with Photoshop. Obviously, something like GIMP can't really be compared to something like what you use for an enterprise database solution in a business that actually makes money, but the concept can still work. It just needs a more extensive TCO analysis and more figures.
...so the argument could be made that reviewing the code before deploying it would comprise 'due diligence' on the part of anyone who wished to use that software, and that if someone didn't do that, it's negligence on their part.
Just like those admins that didn't patch their boxes didn't exercise "due diligence"? Even though a patch was availible for months before? Negligent like them?
I've run into the same thing where I work (a public school), and I'm *in* the tech dept. I think a lot of the hestitancy comes from fear. The people "in charge" know Microsoft, and the change frightens them. They are unwilling or unable to learn the new skills required to maintain the systems. "Old skool" used to mean you knew Unix; now it means you know Windows.
It doesn't get me down though. We've got some IDS boxes going in, a web server, and an experimental server going in. All running Linux. Realize that *I* am the one supporting them, since no one else knows how. If the people to manage them don't have the skills necessary don't expect a warm response. Replacing people is a cold way of handling it, and there are a *lot* of political issues to deal with in a school system. In these days when school districts may need to save money, show a real TCO benefit, and the switch can be made.
Email me at clsaiko (at) mahtomedi.k12.mn.us if you want to hear how I brought some of the changes about.
So, they lost thousands from you, but they just gained tens of thousands from these poor students. If they feel hurt, they'll just go and sue someone else. They win either way.
I am one person. How many others have just made this decision today? I'm not really young enough to be considered "youth", but I am close enough to see that the youth of today are not clueless on this. They *understand* these issues enough to have an opinion. And what is that resounding opinion?
Fuck 'em.
They simply don't care about the RIAA. They know that the artists don't get shit from them. It has become so ingrained into them that they can download and freely share music that they cannot even envision a world without it. They will reject this antiquated behemoth called the RIAA in search of other options. They already are.
It isn't that we are waiting for the destruction to occur. It is in progress. I work in a public school district. I talked to three different high school kids today about this, all from different circles. They know about this. It is an issue that they grasp. They already don't buy from any RIAA companies. These kids will soon be growing up. They will show their minds with their dollars. The revolution is underway.
...I will never buy another cd or music from an RIAA affiliated label for the rest of my life. They have now lost thousands of dollars in sales because of this. They are obviously doing what they feel is right. I must do the same. Unfortunately, this means not listening to some of my favorite bands anymore, but I believe they can be replaced. Nobody has a monopoly on creativity.
I'm always thinking "what kind of DRM will they include in this one? It's gotten to the point where I will NOT apply patches for anything but server products, and only reluctantly so.
Where? At work? Your end users shouldn't be doing anything with DRM enabled media on the machines anyway, they don't own them. The company that bought them does. Besides, if you *do* let them do that sort of stuff, and the DRM starts interfering with the user's ability to play their media, it would be a great opportunity to educate people about what Microsoft is doing.
> User: "I can't play my new song I downloaded. It says, 'DRM License Signature File Not Found'. What's that?"
> Tech Support: "Let me tell you a little story..."
It's your responsibility as the overseer to keep the systems secure, not play politics with something you personally don't agree with. I'm sure your boss would agree.
On your home machines however, it's a whole different story. You can definately tell Microsoft exactly where to put their patches.
Where I live they have begun putting in those "self-checkout" registers at grocery stores, so they trust people enough to not steal food.
But I suppose food kinda has built-in DRM; it eventually goes bad, and you can't copy it. Perhaps we might eventually see this sort of self-serve stuff at regular retail outlets?
If you truly do want to help, go to the Club PA section of their site and contribute. It's real money like this that pays the bills folks. Plus you get cool stuff every month for being a member!
I am in no way affiliated with PA. I just love the site.
A proxy server isn't beyond the kids in Junior and Senior High, I find them all over. Too bad we have a horribly restrictive port filtering policy on our firewall now, so they don't work. You'd be surprised how adept the kids coming up are at computers. There are still ways, I know, but I certainly don't want the goatse.cx guy as a wallpaper in the lab. I don't care how free information wants to be, we have a responsibility in our school district (there's a law) to protect minors from porn.
So we should just let the minors that we have been charged with educating in the public school system just see all the nasty porn on the internet?
As a part if the N2H2 software, anyone can request a review. They don't have to be in any level of authority.
Let's face it, minors can't vote, minors really don't have many of the rights that legal adults do. Why is this? Because your average minor cannot make an educated decision. I may offend some people here, but have you ever listened to the average minor rationalize something? It's hilarious. Now, I know that there are those minors that are mature beyond their years, and there are those adults that don't ever seem to grow up, but on average, minors can't make all of their decisions for themselves.
I got an email (from a student, I tracked him) "requesting" that I unblock some porn site. The email consisted of a paragraph of swearing, cursing, and various comments about my mother. Yeah, real good way to get me to unblock it. I really think porn is at the base of all this. We need software that will block all the porn. The rest is just there because the system is flexible.
It isn't like we keep the "list" as it is out of sight. Any parent can come, sit down at a computer, and see what we block. But there is no way that you can possibly release a list of web sites that are blocked and unblocked. There would be billions of sites. N2H2 decides initially, but we have the final say. I'm not going to say that all of the web filter companies don't have an axe to grind, but N2H2 is flexible enough that the control is clearly not in their hands.
...but the fact that governement is using software to protect it's citizens completly blind...don't give a company like n2h2 the playground.
We use N2H2 here at a public school. If something is being blocked without merit, I manually put it into another filter that is unblocked. How is that giving N2H2 the power to censor the internet? Am I one of those evil people in the government that is keeping information from the people?
Initially, the pricipals from all the schools in our district came up with a policy of what to block, and what to let through. N2H2 does a pretty good job of blocking the bad stuff. But we always have that list of what categories we choose to block available to the public, should they request it. N2H2 is simply a tool, not the evil censorship machine it seems to be made out to be here on/.
If a hypnotized/possessed person tried to kill you, would it be moral to hurt them in your self-defense?
Possessed, maybe not. Possessed with what? Alcohol? Evil spirits? Rage? You'd probably be able to hurt them in self defense legally, but ethically it isn't clear cut.
However, if they are hypnotized and trying to kill you, you should have a clean conscience in hurting them in self-defense. A hypnotized person doesn't do anything that they wouldn't do otherwise. So this (hypothetical) person actually would kill you under normal cicumstances.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to be a jerk, but this gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. The people that are in it for the money, but actually suck at it find out that they can't cut it when competing against other people that are competent. And then back to school with them. Leaves room for "the rest of us" that know what we're doing. It doesn't always pan out that way, I know, but I'd like to think it does.
So get certified. Having those little groups of letters on your resume does wonders for opening doors. If it only takes six weeks, get it done. It doesn't cost much.
Lots of people just restart their machines and say, "Oh well, it's just Windows. Fucking Microsoft." and never investigate. The vast majority of errors that I find on Windows, and I admin close to a thousand machines, are from either malfunctioning hardware or misbehaving software, not Windows.
Granted, 95, 98, ME were terrible, and even NT to some extent, but from 2000 and on Microsoft has really cleaned up their act. This constant blaming of Microsoft just has to end. Putting our heads in the sand and not realizing the truth gives the impression that we are the ones spreading the FUD.
I am a hard core gamer. I stress my computer all the time. My Windows 2000 box for gaming at home has uptimes measured in months and that's only because I'll boot into Red Hat sometimes. I push my machines all the time. Lots of Gaming, VMWare and MySQL on Windows. Apache, MySQL, and coding on Linux. They're all solid.
When I get together with people for LAN parties (to game) other people have problems. Constantly. Why? Because they bought the cheapest hardware they could, and they're paying the price now in stability.
What exactly is the purpose behind this? Why was it put in here? People are going to need to grow up if people in "our" circle want to be taken seriously. I've used Windows 2000 and Windows XP both. They crash as much as my Red Hat and Debian boxes do. Never. They are all rock solid.
I work for a public school system. We have a class at the High School that teaches and certifies for A+ (I know, I know). They have all sorts of problems getting stuff to work and to get a system stable. In Windows and Linux.
It isn't because they are high schoolers.
It isn't because they are "just learning".
It's because they buy really shitty hardware. They look for the best cost, and they get their hardware from some loser manufacturer that has fucked up drivers and horrible quality control.
Properly maintained boxes with quality hardware in them just don't crash anymore. Programs maybe, but not systems.
Christ, people, this has been beat to death! Microsoft has a great product for an OS now! Get back to making something better than them instead trying to convince yourself that Microsoft is delusional.
Mod me Flamebait, I don't care.
Kind of like how when I left the movie theater last night I was disappointed with Reloaded. But come the next morning, I began reading all the stuff here on slashdot, and suddenly I'm convinced that there was stuff there that I missed, and that I need to see it again.
Perhaps my mind just needs to convince itself that the reason that I didn't especially like it was because I didn't understand it. Yeah, that's it. I'm too clueless, cause the Bros. W would never steer me wrong....right?
RIAA =! Law Enforcement
"Worst. Apology. Ever."
Some people do. It doesn't take that many to buy into it in order for it to pay off, because the cards at that point have a ridiculous margin on them. I started a video card upgrade plan that seems to work well.
Beginning with Nvidia's RivaTNT, I skip a generation and then wait 6 months after release. You don't feel *all* of the brunt of the big prices, since there are a bunch of "Ultra" versions by that point, and I don't have any trouble running games in the time between. I also don't buy the latest games right away either, and prefer to let a patch or two come out.
I haven't had a problem yet with running games.
And yet, there you sit, posting to slasdot.
It's actually an XML-based Web Page in the .NET architechture.
Source: filext.com
It cannot be stressed enough how important those buzzwords and acronyms are. TCO. ROI. Risk. If you want to get a certain OSS software package to be put in, you need to make a case for it. Simply saying "This OSS x is tons better than this company's y software. w00t." is going to get you nowhere. They don't think in those terms. As a poster above said, once you start dealing with the people that handle the cash flow on their terms, and in their language, your chances of success greatly increase.
My experience first hand was this:
I work in a public school district, and there was interest in people using Adobe Photoshop to work on graphics in web design and art. I brought up the fact that we could use GIMP instead. "We'd save money since it's free!" I was shot down.
Then, I did a fairly simple TCO analysis comparing the two. We wouldn't use any Adobe support anyway. GIMP has a nearly non-existent learning curve for what they wanted it to do, and the total cost of training would be about the same, since users didn't know much about either piece of software. Perfect. Then I went back.
We're now deploying GIMP this summer, to many more users than we would have with Photoshop. Obviously, something like GIMP can't really be compared to something like what you use for an enterprise database solution in a business that actually makes money, but the concept can still work. It just needs a more extensive TCO analysis and more figures.
And the MSSQL patch was available BEFORE the slammer worm hit. I don't see the difference.
Just like those admins that didn't patch their boxes didn't exercise "due diligence"? Even though a patch was availible for months before? Negligent like them?
It doesn't get me down though. We've got some IDS boxes going in, a web server, and an experimental server going in. All running Linux. Realize that *I* am the one supporting them, since no one else knows how. If the people to manage them don't have the skills necessary don't expect a warm response. Replacing people is a cold way of handling it, and there are a *lot* of political issues to deal with in a school system. In these days when school districts may need to save money, show a real TCO benefit, and the switch can be made.
Email me at clsaiko (at) mahtomedi.k12.mn.us if you want to hear how I brought some of the changes about.
I am one person. How many others have just made this decision today? I'm not really young enough to be considered "youth", but I am close enough to see that the youth of today are not clueless on this. They *understand* these issues enough to have an opinion. And what is that resounding opinion?
Fuck 'em.
They simply don't care about the RIAA. They know that the artists don't get shit from them. It has become so ingrained into them that they can download and freely share music that they cannot even envision a world without it. They will reject this antiquated behemoth called the RIAA in search of other options. They already are.
It isn't that we are waiting for the destruction to occur. It is in progress. I work in a public school district. I talked to three different high school kids today about this, all from different circles. They know about this. It is an issue that they grasp. They already don't buy from any RIAA companies. These kids will soon be growing up. They will show their minds with their dollars. The revolution is underway.
Time to expand my musical tastes.
independent-artists.com
boycott-riaa.com
Why RIAA Keeps Getting Hacked
RIAA Affiliated Labels
Hmmm. Can't seem to get to the RIAA site right now...
Microsoft isn't going to change their business practices because you are going bald.
Where? At work? Your end users shouldn't be doing anything with DRM enabled media on the machines anyway, they don't own them. The company that bought them does. Besides, if you *do* let them do that sort of stuff, and the DRM starts interfering with the user's ability to play their media, it would be a great opportunity to educate people about what Microsoft is doing.
> User: "I can't play my new song I downloaded. It says, 'DRM License Signature File Not Found'. What's that?"
> Tech Support: "Let me tell you a little story..."
It's your responsibility as the overseer to keep the systems secure, not play politics with something you personally don't agree with. I'm sure your boss would agree.
On your home machines however, it's a whole different story. You can definately tell Microsoft exactly where to put their patches.
But I suppose food kinda has built-in DRM; it eventually goes bad, and you can't copy it. Perhaps we might eventually see this sort of self-serve stuff at regular retail outlets?
If you truly do want to help, go to the Club PA section of their site and contribute. It's real money like this that pays the bills folks. Plus you get cool stuff every month for being a member!
I am in no way affiliated with PA. I just love the site.
A proxy server isn't beyond the kids in Junior and Senior High, I find them all over. Too bad we have a horribly restrictive port filtering policy on our firewall now, so they don't work. You'd be surprised how adept the kids coming up are at computers. There are still ways, I know, but I certainly don't want the goatse.cx guy as a wallpaper in the lab. I don't care how free information wants to be, we have a responsibility in our school district (there's a law) to protect minors from porn.
As a part if the N2H2 software, anyone can request a review. They don't have to be in any level of authority.
Let's face it, minors can't vote, minors really don't have many of the rights that legal adults do. Why is this? Because your average minor cannot make an educated decision. I may offend some people here, but have you ever listened to the average minor rationalize something? It's hilarious. Now, I know that there are those minors that are mature beyond their years, and there are those adults that don't ever seem to grow up, but on average, minors can't make all of their decisions for themselves.
I got an email (from a student, I tracked him) "requesting" that I unblock some porn site. The email consisted of a paragraph of swearing, cursing, and various comments about my mother. Yeah, real good way to get me to unblock it. I really think porn is at the base of all this. We need software that will block all the porn. The rest is just there because the system is flexible.
It isn't like we keep the "list" as it is out of sight. Any parent can come, sit down at a computer, and see what we block. But there is no way that you can possibly release a list of web sites that are blocked and unblocked. There would be billions of sites. N2H2 decides initially, but we have the final say. I'm not going to say that all of the web filter companies don't have an axe to grind, but N2H2 is flexible enough that the control is clearly not in their hands.
We use N2H2 here at a public school. If something is being blocked without merit, I manually put it into another filter that is unblocked. How is that giving N2H2 the power to censor the internet? Am I one of those evil people in the government that is keeping information from the people?
Initially, the pricipals from all the schools in our district came up with a policy of what to block, and what to let through. N2H2 does a pretty good job of blocking the bad stuff. But we always have that list of what categories we choose to block available to the public, should they request it. N2H2 is simply a tool, not the evil censorship machine it seems to be made out to be here on /.
Possessed, maybe not. Possessed with what? Alcohol? Evil spirits? Rage? You'd probably be able to hurt them in self defense legally, but ethically it isn't clear cut.
However, if they are hypnotized and trying to kill you, you should have a clean conscience in hurting them in self-defense. A hypnotized person doesn't do anything that they wouldn't do otherwise. So this (hypothetical) person actually would kill you under normal cicumstances.