[ where went the feature not allowing to post without at least one preview?? ]
I work at international company and do these decisions for our region so here is my experience.
Leasing versus purchase: Our local finance department made the
decision for us that in our country it is much cheaper to lease than purchase.
So we lease everything. But in other coutries we purchase everything -
therefore, it depends on the country and finance do the decision for us.
Support - We use Dell computers - because of 3 years NBD (Next
Business Day) support which we get by default with computers - so that we
don't have to pay any additional cost for support.. Whenever we have
hardware problem they come and fix it (replace the component) within 24
hours. Marvellous!
Upgrades - Be cautious about the price of upgrades, while the
initial purchase of computer could cheap, upgrades with some companies (Dell)
can be very expensive (plan for long term). Also, be cautios about the
ownership of components being bought for upgrades in the case you have a
leasing with returning the equipment in the end of leasing contract.
Model and configuration - You probably want to keep the same HW
configuration over the time so that you can use the same images for OS
and apps. Make sure you buy a model which is in the beginning of product
cycle (avoid purchasing models being EOLed in a couple weeks). And be
cautious about parts being changed within the model from vendor. It
happened to us that Dell changed the graphic card in the model we were
taking and it broke all our images. Make an agreement with vendor that
they let you know about HW config changes in advance so that you can
still buy the old configuration.
How we do purchase - We first ask for loan of the computer to
perform a real test to verify the workstations will be really suitable
for us. Then we try to buy all computers in bulk and at once (to avoid
problems with changing configurations and model).
Linux - As we have to support Linux, we chosen Dell as they
certified their workstations for Linux. But we do real tests before the
purchase anyway.
Everyone here is describing (and often complaining) as age does matter.
I want to describe an opposite experience.
It doesn't hold true in my company. In my company people get respect according their skills and experience, regardless their age.
It's true that older people are often more skilled and experienced. But if some young person is exception and is better than others that he gets respect, promotion, etc.
I became boss and I'm the youngest person (24) in my team.
And it's working. I'm working in very successful department of one top dot-com company. It's good motivation to know that your success really depends only on you.
But - I think it isn't possbile to buy a patent for something what was made available to public. And open source is available to public, right? Can someone who understands patents better than I do comment this?
If you look for visual design environment you should give NetBeans IDE a try. It's a cool and professional open source product and if you don't mind Java you'll love it.
What's good for you - it's working on both Linux and Windows (among other OS's).
I agree - it's a vital step to desktop acceptance for not-hacker-user. But we don't want to lose hackers, right? So it is also vital to leave a way how to kick off eyecandy and let kernel info scroll by. And it should be possible to do it either permanently (through some boot time parametr) or during the bootup (by hitting ESC or something).
I have to interview applicants for a job often. And it is important to find out what are technical skills of the person. I think
some sort of test (theoretical / practical) is the best way how to find out these things. I'm thinking about Brainbench now - maybe
I will pickup couple tests from Brainbench which match the job requirements (they are different for each position) and I'll let the
applicant pass them as part of the interview. The connections would be allowed only to Brainbench site so the person couldn't cheat. This will be very useful for me.
And of course it is good for self-assessment... Generaly I like it - I'm glad to know about Brainbench.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.woodhoff.com/en/
The stuff in this post was already discussed in Info Glut - Five Exabytes of Data Created in 2002
Mod the parent up!
This is exactly the perfect solution (at least this solves my problem perfectly).
http://www.ibiblio.org/fosphost/exhost.htm
(Originally pointed out on Google Answers' question Opensource infrastructure projects
Anyone knows about any other hosting sites or SW?
I work at international company and do these decisions for our region so here is my experience.
And be cautious about parts being changed within the model from vendor. It happened to us that Dell changed the graphic card in the model we were taking and it broke all our images. Make an agreement with vendor that they let you know about HW config changes in advance so that you can still buy the old configuration.
adf
It doesn't hold true in my company. In my company people get respect according their skills and experience, regardless their age. It's true that older people are often more skilled and experienced. But if some young person is exception and is better than others that he gets respect, promotion, etc.
I became boss and I'm the youngest person (24) in my team.
And it's working. I'm working in very successful department of one top dot-com company. It's good motivation to know that your success really depends only on you.
Kamzik
But - I think it isn't possbile to buy a patent for something what was made available to public. And open source is available to public, right? Can someone who understands patents better than I do comment this?
Kamzik
What's good for you - it's working on both Linux and Windows (among other OS's).
Kamzik
Kamzik
And of course it is good for self-assessment... Generaly I like it - I'm glad to know about Brainbench.
Kamzik