Msft does this all time, they blantantly break the law, and when they get fined: they yawn and throw somebody some pocket change.
Toxic waste dumpers used to this also. It was cheaper to just pay the fine for dumping toxic waste, than to pay for the expensive process of correct disposal.
My guess in a $475 fine every five years, or so, is worth it. I expect the spammers to be right back at it.
For example, how about a way to reinstall windows - on it's own partition, and windows would automatically find all installed, well know applications, on their own partition. And get rid of that XP activation cr@p.
Instead, windows always wants the entire HDD in one partition. And msft makes me paranoid to re-install because Idon't know how many more actiivations I have.
Wouldn't it be great if you could just push a button, and have windows reinstall from a bunch of cab files on their own partition?
OT: Horrible name for a certification
on
Hacker Boot Camp
·
· Score: 1
"Hacker" is not a technical term. The word is meaningless. I have heard of the following refered to as "hacks" or "hackers" : cab drivers, writers, and prison guards - not to mention smokers and hacky-sack players.
In the IT realm "hacker" has strongly negitive conitations, no matter if you say "ethical" or not.
If by "ethical hacker" you mean specialist in penetration testing, then call it that.
Dan Lyons has been sucking up to scox, and bashing Linux for years. His disregard for facts is amazing.His articles are way over the top.
Danny is only one example. Forbes gushes over msft constantly. And forbes vehemently *hates* anybody who competes with msft, or msft's Internets, of has anything unkind to say about msft.
It has been discussed that not everybody can be a manager, do you think everybody can get a clearance whenever they want?
First, you can't just decide to get a clearance, like you decide to get an A+ certiification. Your employer has to pay for it - about $25K to $40K. And your employer has to wait four to six while the clearance process takes place. If you get a better job the next day - that employer takes the hit.
Would you be surprised to learn that employers are very - and I do mean *very* - reluctant to do this? For an employer to go through that expense and trouble and risk, you have to have some very special skills.
Also not everybody can get a clearance. If your spouse is a forign national, that can kill the deal right there. Past expereince with drugs, bi-sexual experimenting, can't remember your address and phone number from a room you rented 15 years ago? Anything like that can keep you from getting a clearance.
BTW: I have seen people with top-secret clearances laid-off in droves. Some got jobs right away, others not. Bean counters don't consider how difficult the jobs may be to replace. They just have to make somebody look good by cutting expenses.
Your post looks good from a theoretical standpoint, but hardly holds up in the real world.
"The other option is to find a niche where there isn't enough supply. That includes government work with a clearance, a bunch of positions in health care (I recently discovered that pharmacists have their pick of jobs)"
Oh sure, so I'll throw away my 25 years in IT, my degrees in math, comp sci, and business, and be a pharmacist. Will that niche still be there after I have completed my studies? I had a top-secret clearance at my last job, it hasn't helped me in the slightest. By the way, you can't just decide to clearance any day of the week, your empoyer has to pay for it ($25K - $40K), and it takes about four to six months.
"and the less popular parts of IT. The less popular parts of IT aren't necessarily bad jobs, they just aren't the rent-a-coder jobs that schools keep trying to fill. Rather it's the people that know a complex application or have lots of experience in a unused platform"
And where do you get all this experience? Look at the job boards, nobody is going to hire you unless you already have the experience. Learn a complex app? You mean like SAP? Any idea how much that would cost.
Look at the job boards. Look at what IT recruiters *really* want.
They rarely want degrees. Certifications rarely count for much. They very rarely want MBAs. What they really want is a very specific skill set which varies for earch job.
By "skills" I mean recent, verifiable, experience with specific products: cisco routers, microsoft c#, solaris 10, Oracle 9, SAP, etc. Usually employers want about six such skills, although I have seen job ads that list over 30 such "skills." If you don't list the "skills" the employers are looking for, you won't get past the initial screening.
How do you get started? You don't. The industry is already glutted with experienced people who can't find work. You sure as hell don't get started doing actual IT work by getting an MBA.
The SIM is about *management* that is what the "M" stands for.
Msft tried to keep their involvement in the scox-scam secret, for a reason.
Msft is -very much- a co-conspirator in what is a very serious scam. Arguably, the scam was seriously damaging to IBM, and others. As I understand it, IBM makes billions every year in Linux support.
If the sunw lawsuit against msft was worth $2B, the IBM lawsuit should be worth at least $5B. Not big money to msft, but the DoJ may take notice of another huge msft scam.
Expect the lawsuit around 2008, after the present administration is out of office.
F/OSS is working to be more compatible with msft. Samba is trying to work with msft systems and networks. OpenOffice is trying to work with msft documents. Xine and mplayer are trying to work with msft multi-media formats. Linux is trying to work with NTFS. And so on, and so on.
Msft, on the other hand, is fighting to be incompatible with everything that is not msft.
"Well, I think there are experts (not named, of course) who claim Linux violates our intellectual property. I'm not going to comment (of course not! that would not be the way of the weasle. you don't ever back up innuendo). But to the degree that that's the case, of course we owe it to our shareholders to have a strategy. And when there is something interesting to say, you'll be the first to hear it."
1) You don't have to be right to win, especially if you have more money, and msft has about $60B in the bank.
2) The lawsuit itself is a msft victory. The very fact that a linux company is being sued causes anti-linux "FUD." It doesn't matter in the least if the lawsuit is merritless.
3) The lawsuit also punishes msft competitors with legal expenses. Msft can drop $100MM on a bogus lawsuit and never miss it. It's pocket change to msft. But, to a small innovative company, being sued by msft is death. It doesn't who is right is wrong.
"The staff believed, based on conversations with frequent customers, that most customers were buying the boxes to install Windows on them. But that is not surprising to us, because, as we discuss in section two, brick-and-mortar "computer" stores are still part of the Microsoft distribution chain."
Does that make sense? Because other stores have windows installed by default, people have to buy a non-windows box, and pirate windows?
Maybe I wasn't clear. My point is that these types of articles are cr@p. How do I know? Common sense. Just look around.
It's easy to tell what careers are in high demand, and which are not. Sure, some IT pros make big $$, but that is a matter of being in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills - you can't count on it, no matter how good you are.
For example, as a lawyer, with a little experience, you can realistically expect $200/year. Put the same amount of effort into IT and what can you expect? $70K? Also, IT is famous for zero job security, and you often become less valuable as you get more experience. Especially IT experience often doesn't transfer from one job to the next.
I'm in Denver, Colorado. The following describe a few ads I've seen (I swear I am not exagerating):
- MCSE wanted for one day deployment (setting up PCs), salary $16/hour.
- Experienced Web-Developer, PHP, MySQL, salary: $6.50/hour (Costco pays workers $17/hour, Wendy's pays $8.50/hour).
- Experienced Web-Develper, HTML, salary: $0.00/hour, but you are provided with beer when are finished.
- Web-Develper, HTML, salary: $0.00/hour, you are supposed to work just for the benefit of the experience.
I occasionally see a few jobs for helpdesk and technicians for about $10/hour.
Of course some jobs pay more, but good lord do they want qualifications. Consider this "entry level" job that is still on craigslist. No salary is given (typical) but the "entry level" part should give you a clue (I will bet real money that the janitor earns more) :
- Entry Level - Application Developer Call Centers Strong background in object oriented application design, development and debugging. Java, Perl and Visual Studio.Net experience preferred. Experience working with Microsoft SQL Server and/or MySQL. IVR development, design or quality assurance experience a plus Date: 2006-03-15, 7:37PM MST http://denver.craigslist.org/tch/142288447.html [craigslist.org]
Like most places in the USA there is a huge shortage of nurses. There are full-page ads in the newspaper offering $15K sign-on bonuses etc. There is also a shortage of truck drivers, companies have huge banners outside their facilities advertising for truck drivers. I know nurses that make over $100K/year. According the news, truck drivers are making over $75K/year.
IT? Funny thing, no full-page ads, no sign-on bonuses, no big banners. In fact, it's quite the opposite. What jobs there are advertised are usually short term contracts with no benefits. There are few ads for IT guys, and fewer still give salaries, but the following describe a few ads I've seen (I swear I am not exagerating):
- MCSE wanted for one day deployment (setting up PCs), salary $16/hour.
- Experienced Web-Developer, PHP, MySQL, salary: $6.50/hour (Costco pays workers $17/hour, Wendy's pays $8.50/hour).
- Experienced Web-Develper, HTML, salary: $0.00/hour, but you are provided with beer when are finished.
- Web-Develper, HTML, salary: $0.00/hour, you are supposed to work just for the benefit of the experience.
I occasionally see a few jobs for helpdesk and technicians for about $10/hour.
Of course some jobs pay more, but good lord do they want qualifications. Consider this "entry level" job that is still on craigslist. No salary is given (typical) but the "entry level" part should give you a clue (I will bet real money that the janitor earns more) :
- Entry Level - Application Developer Call Centers Strong background in object oriented application design, development and debugging. Java, Perl and Visual Studio.Net experience preferred. Experience working with Microsoft SQL Server and/or MySQL. IVR development, design or quality assurance experience a plus Date: 2006-03-15, 7:37PM MST http://denver.craigslist.org/tch/142288447.html
Image how much better you would do if you put your efforts into a real career field such as law, medicine, aviation, or for that matter, driving a truck.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe now all the kids from "America's Funnies Home Videos" can grow up and sue their parents.
Must be great to be a lawyer in the USA. I wonder if it's too late for me to go to law school?
Msft does this all time, they blantantly break the law, and when they get fined: they yawn and throw somebody some pocket change.
Toxic waste dumpers used to this also. It was cheaper to just pay the fine for dumping toxic waste, than to pay for the expensive process of correct disposal.
My guess in a $475 fine every five years, or so, is worth it. I expect the spammers to be right back at it.
According to msft, msft is not trying to stop linux, only unlicensed versions of windows.
I hate to remind everybody of this: but windows is installed on over 90% of x86 systems. There is a fair chance that people are pirating.
Still, I don't think msft any right to make such demands.
For example, how about a way to reinstall windows - on it's own partition, and windows would automatically find all installed, well know applications, on their own partition. And get rid of that XP activation cr@p.
Instead, windows always wants the entire HDD in one partition. And msft makes me paranoid to re-install because Idon't know how many more actiivations I have.
Wouldn't it be great if you could just push a button, and have windows reinstall from a bunch of cab files on their own partition?
"Hacker" is not a technical term. The word is meaningless. I have heard of the following refered to as "hacks" or "hackers" : cab drivers, writers, and prison guards - not to mention smokers and hacky-sack players.
In the IT realm "hacker" has strongly negitive conitations, no matter if you say "ethical" or not.
If by "ethical hacker" you mean specialist in penetration testing, then call it that.
Too young? At 47, I appeciate that.
But, in the south park movie, they could say MFer, and show dildos, etc. That sort of thing makes sense with the south park style of humor.
I don't think that sort of thing will make sense with the simpson's style of humor.
I suppose the simpson's movie will be just like the simpson's only longer.
That "fat guy doing the milkshake" is beyond old. I've seen the gag played a few times. I think it was first done at the end of dodgeball.
TV limits South Park, in some ways becasue of south park's style of "shock" humor. That is not true for the simpson's.
Anyway, I don't know if the south park movie was any funnier than the show.
Why does forbes suck up to msft all the time?
Dan Lyons has been sucking up to scox, and bashing Linux for years. His disregard for facts is amazing.His articles are way over the top.
Danny is only one example. Forbes gushes over msft constantly. And forbes vehemently *hates* anybody who competes with msft, or msft's Internets, of has anything unkind to say about msft.
It has been discussed that not everybody can be a manager, do you think everybody can get a clearance whenever they want?
First, you can't just decide to get a clearance, like you decide to get an A+ certiification. Your employer has to pay for it - about $25K to $40K. And your employer has to wait four to six while the clearance process takes place. If you get a better job the next day - that employer takes the hit.
Would you be surprised to learn that employers are very - and I do mean *very* - reluctant to do this? For an employer to go through that expense and trouble and risk, you have to have some very special skills.
Also not everybody can get a clearance. If your spouse is a forign national, that can kill the deal right there. Past expereince with drugs, bi-sexual experimenting, can't remember your address and phone number from a room you rented 15 years ago? Anything like that can keep you from getting a clearance.
BTW: I have seen people with top-secret clearances laid-off in droves. Some got jobs right away, others not. Bean counters don't consider how difficult the jobs may be to replace. They just have to make somebody look good by cutting expenses.
Your post looks good from a theoretical standpoint, but hardly holds up in the real world.
"The other option is to find a niche where there isn't enough supply. That includes government work with a clearance, a bunch of positions in health care (I recently discovered that pharmacists have their pick of jobs)"
Oh sure, so I'll throw away my 25 years in IT, my degrees in math, comp sci, and business, and be a pharmacist. Will that niche still be there after I have completed my studies? I had a top-secret clearance at my last job, it hasn't helped me in the slightest. By the way, you can't just decide to clearance any day of the week, your empoyer has to pay for it ($25K - $40K), and it takes about four to six months.
"and the less popular parts of IT. The less popular parts of IT aren't necessarily bad jobs, they just aren't the rent-a-coder jobs that schools keep trying to fill. Rather it's the people that know a complex application or have lots of experience in a unused platform"
And where do you get all this experience? Look at the job boards, nobody is going to hire you unless you already have the experience. Learn a complex app? You mean like SAP? Any idea how much that would cost.
Look at the job boards. Look at what IT recruiters *really* want.
They rarely want degrees. Certifications rarely count for much. They very rarely want MBAs. What they really want is a very specific skill set which varies for earch job.
By "skills" I mean recent, verifiable, experience with specific products: cisco routers, microsoft c#, solaris 10, Oracle 9, SAP, etc. Usually employers want about six such skills, although I have seen job ads that list over 30 such "skills." If you don't list the "skills" the employers are looking for, you won't get past the initial screening.
How do you get started? You don't. The industry is already glutted with experienced people who can't find work. You sure as hell don't get started doing actual IT work by getting an MBA.
The SIM is about *management* that is what the "M" stands for.
Take at look at the timeline case.
Msft constantly howls about how linux is huge legal minefield. But all available evidence shows that it is very much the other way around.
In spite of what msft/scox would have you believe, nobody has been sued for using Linux.
Office-Live only give select people an account. You have to fill out the registration, and wait 2 - 4 weeks to find out if you have been chosen.
Msft tried to keep their involvement in the scox-scam secret, for a reason.
Msft is -very much- a co-conspirator in what is a very serious scam. Arguably, the scam was seriously damaging to IBM, and others. As I understand it, IBM makes billions every year in Linux support.
If the sunw lawsuit against msft was worth $2B, the IBM lawsuit should be worth at least $5B. Not big money to msft, but the DoJ may take notice of another huge msft scam.
Expect the lawsuit around 2008, after the present administration is out of office.
It's the other way around. Very much so.
F/OSS is working to be more compatible with msft. Samba is trying to work with msft systems and networks. OpenOffice is trying to work with msft documents. Xine and mplayer are trying to work with msft multi-media formats. Linux is trying to work with NTFS. And so on, and so on.
Msft, on the other hand, is fighting to be incompatible with everything that is not msft.
Anybody read "The Way of the Weasle" ??
"Well, I think there are experts (not named, of course) who claim Linux violates our intellectual property. I'm not going to comment (of course not! that would not be the way of the weasle. you don't ever back up innuendo). But to the degree that that's the case, of course we owe it to our shareholders to have a strategy. And when there is something interesting to say, you'll be the first to hear it."
1) You don't have to be right to win, especially if you have more money, and msft has about $60B in the bank.
2) The lawsuit itself is a msft victory. The very fact that a linux company is being sued causes anti-linux "FUD." It doesn't matter in the least if the lawsuit is merritless.
3) The lawsuit also punishes msft competitors with legal expenses. Msft can drop $100MM on a bogus lawsuit and never miss it. It's pocket change to msft. But, to a small innovative company, being sued by msft is death. It doesn't who is right is wrong.
I know that I sure don't. I thought the only support from msft was super expensive, and worthless.
"The staff believed, based on conversations with frequent customers, that most customers were buying the boxes to install Windows on them. But that is not surprising to us, because, as we discuss in section two, brick-and-mortar "computer" stores are still part of the Microsoft distribution chain."
Does that make sense? Because other stores have windows installed by default, people have to buy a non-windows box, and pirate windows?
I was laid of from General Dynamics in 2001, held a TS clearance, 20 years experience, bachelor's in math/comp sci, etc.
After I was laid off, I applied to all the major defense contractors for years. Nobody was interested in the least.
Maybe I wasn't clear. My point is that these types of articles are cr@p. How do I know? Common sense. Just look around.
It's easy to tell what careers are in high demand, and which are not. Sure, some IT pros make big $$, but that is a matter of being in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills - you can't count on it, no matter how good you are.
For example, as a lawyer, with a little experience, you can realistically expect $200/year. Put the same amount of effort into IT and what can you expect? $70K? Also, IT is famous for zero job security, and you often become less valuable as you get more experience. Especially IT experience often doesn't transfer from one job to the next.
I'm in Denver, Colorado. The following describe a few ads I've seen (I swear I am not exagerating):
.Net experience preferred. Experience working with Microsoft SQL Server and/or MySQL. IVR development, design or quality assurance experience a plus
- MCSE wanted for one day deployment (setting up PCs), salary $16/hour.
- Experienced Web-Developer, PHP, MySQL, salary: $6.50/hour (Costco pays workers $17/hour, Wendy's pays $8.50/hour).
- Experienced Web-Develper, HTML, salary: $0.00/hour, but you are provided with beer when are finished.
- Web-Develper, HTML, salary: $0.00/hour, you are supposed to work just for the benefit of the experience.
I occasionally see a few jobs for helpdesk and technicians for about $10/hour.
Of course some jobs pay more, but good lord do they want qualifications. Consider this "entry level" job that is still on craigslist. No salary is given (typical) but the "entry level" part should give you a clue (I will bet real money that the janitor earns more) :
- Entry Level - Application Developer Call Centers
Strong background in object oriented application design, development and debugging. Java, Perl and Visual Studio
Date: 2006-03-15, 7:37PM MST
http://denver.craigslist.org/tch/142288447.html [craigslist.org]
That is no joke. A least here in Denver. Costco workers make $17/hour.
I'm in Denver, Co.
.Net experience preferred. Experience working with Microsoft SQL Server and/or MySQL. IVR development, design or quality assurance experience a plus
Like most places in the USA there is a huge shortage of nurses. There are full-page ads in the newspaper offering $15K sign-on bonuses etc. There is also a shortage of truck drivers, companies have huge banners outside their facilities advertising for truck drivers. I know nurses that make over $100K/year. According the news, truck drivers are making over $75K/year.
IT? Funny thing, no full-page ads, no sign-on bonuses, no big banners. In fact, it's quite the opposite. What jobs there are advertised are usually short term contracts with no benefits. There are few ads for IT guys, and fewer still give salaries, but the following describe a few ads I've seen (I swear I am not exagerating):
- MCSE wanted for one day deployment (setting up PCs), salary $16/hour.
- Experienced Web-Developer, PHP, MySQL, salary: $6.50/hour (Costco pays workers $17/hour, Wendy's pays $8.50/hour).
- Experienced Web-Develper, HTML, salary: $0.00/hour, but you are provided with beer when are finished.
- Web-Develper, HTML, salary: $0.00/hour, you are supposed to work just for the benefit of the experience.
I occasionally see a few jobs for helpdesk and technicians for about $10/hour.
Of course some jobs pay more, but good lord do they want qualifications. Consider this "entry level" job that is still on craigslist. No salary is given (typical) but the "entry level" part should give you a clue (I will bet real money that the janitor earns more) :
- Entry Level - Application Developer Call Centers
Strong background in object oriented application design, development and debugging. Java, Perl and Visual Studio
Date: 2006-03-15, 7:37PM MST
http://denver.craigslist.org/tch/142288447.html
Image how much better you would do if you put your efforts into a real career field such as law, medicine, aviation, or for that matter, driving a truck.