Ok, I'm baffled now. How is the parent post a troll? If anything it could be redundant, because other people (mostly after me) posted about the misspelling.
I first read the parent post and thought, TROLL! But then I remembered this is/., where it's cool (apparently even "insightful") to bash the current administration.
The parent post is crap. It supplies nothing of value while simultaneously inviting endless political argument.
Hah. MS is suggesting that a product that doesn't include Access is lacking... I call that "prevention".
Access is nifty and useful for small isolated circumstances, but like most MS products it pretends to be capable of doing big things. People try big things, and ultimately they waste time, lose data, and spend money migrating out/away. That's true for Word, Access, and Windows.
At my office we've encountered spreadsheets that got mysteriously corrupted, so much so that they wouldn't load in Excel without crashing it.
Actually that has happened in 3 different cases. One case apparently involved a moderate amount of data across too many sheets, and another case involved a small book with some invisible corruption that was fixed by exporting to tab delimited and then reimported.
Thank you for assuming that I have either not tried to teach or have instead been a poor teacher.
I've been highly successful teaching people who are willing to learn, but some people seem to refuse to behave properly. In some cases I've even had people demonstrate their understanding, only to learn that they quickly reverted to their previous bad ways once I left their side.
As for cert, it's not a guarantee of their competency, but at least it shows they have been taught something, and more importantly that they could demonstrate that they learned it. Then I can go to their management and say, "these people are intentionally ignoring proper use of X, and we know they did learn the proper use because they were certified." Now they can be talked to by their superiors, and it becomes a real issue of job security. That might give them impetus to take their computer use seriously.
I don't know what your experience is dealing with "normal" users in normal non-technical work environments, but mine is extensive. These are not bad or stupid people in general, but rather people who just apparently don't take computer use seriously.
Computers in most work environments aren't dangerous (as cars are), but they definitely pose financial dangers. 1.5days of total company downtime due to a user's poor judgement is very expensive. Even more expensive would be if a user inadvertently allowed a non-employee to gain access to the network (by giving out their password, for example). These are both common failures, and almost certainly the employees have been warned and warned.
Software will not, for the forseeable future, be designed with the simplicity, correctness, and clarity that average users need. Even assuming it were possible to make software that required no training or no documentation, such software would certainly be considered "perfect" by some users, while simultaneously being deemed "wrong" or "difficult" by others.
The simple fact is that right now, most users don't know how to use the tools they've got. It's like many programmers and Vi. Vi is usually detested by first year users, accepted by 2nd or 3rd year users, and loved by long time users. Even after 15 years, occasionally I'll learn something new that really makes my editing life happier.
The same is true for normal people with Windows, a browser, etc. Do you realize how many users go to yahoo.com, then type in the web address into the yahoo search field? Do you know how many times I've tried to convince same users to just type the address into the address bar? Do you know how many times I've been called to help a user whose program has "vanished", simply because somehow the shortcut on the desktop is gone? How difficult is pushing Start->Programs and then looking for your program?
These people need training, and they need testing. Otherwise they won't take it seriously, and they'll continue to be sloppy, inefficient users that demand too much support.
And it brings me to a point that has taken years for me to discover - computers should be treated somewhat like cars and airplanes.
You must study, practice, and demonstrate a minimum level of proficiency to be allowed to operate a car. The same is true of airplanes, but the effort is much greater (as is the cost).
It is an unfortunate effect of marketing that we have people believing computers should be so easy to use that they need no training. Look at a microwave - a true appliance. I'll bet most people only know how to use a microwave to 1/10 of its designed capability. And even then I suspect people don't use the features correctly.
Computer users should have to invest a certain amount of time in regular training - OS use, general application user, and custom application use. There should probably also be a required "Defensive Computing" class, with test, that is required once a year.
It's not all the fault of the users though. Some programs/OSs behave poorly, some hardware does actually fail, etc. But when fixing those problems, you (the IT person) aren't required to be nice to the moron who created the problem (since they are probably far away).
No, there need be no specific compatibility in the new system. There just needs to be some layer between the two systems to manage the translation/interface.
Nobody expects everyone to collectively simultaneously switch. Sure some features may not exist in both systems, and in those cases a layer might not suffice, but much can be accomplished through translation.
I'm not talking about reinventing the wheel, I'm talking about taking what you've learned from the previous attempt - actual requirements and needs, the good and bad of your previous architecture, your development group dynamics (and developers' strengths), and adding in a little bit of new possibilities related to new methodologies and tools.
By your argument, we should be using Win98++ instead of a current version of NT, or minix++ instead of Linux, etc. etc.
Your experiences may be valid for the situations you've been in, but there are as many or more situations where a complete restart is most appropriate (taking the knowledge gained from the previous attempt with you, of course).
Don't forget massive incompatibility and upgrade hassles.:)
Yeah, heaven forbid we learn from our previous attempt and start fresh. We should aspire to do like Microsoft - maintain backward compatability above all other goals. Seems to work for them, right? It certainly makes things more secure...
For the short to medium term (5 to 15 years) this Indian outsourcing may end up being a fad. Someday in the distant future it might make real sense. Until then, I wouldn't seriously think about moving to India just to keep or recapture your job.
Your suggestion is just brilliant, especially considering this company has been operating with Windows since before Linux was anywhere near ready for the desktop.
And do you suggest we run our oil and gas (Windows only) software on Wine? Right.
Yours is the typical Linux zealotry that makes people want to avoid Linux.
I'm doing what I can to move us slowly to non-MS, but that will take years.
Typically these viruses (or more correctly, worms) do little damage to the infected computer
Yeah most are not too damaging, but here's my story.
Symantec's corporate antivirus software only allows for once daily automatic downloading of new virus signatures.
- Last week our AV server downloaded updates at 8am as usual.
- At 11am Symantec released new signature for MyDoom.F.
- At 1pm stupid_corporate_user_04 opens and unleashes MyDoom.F on the network. MyDoom.F blows away all MS Office and image files on stupid_corporate_user_04's machine, then begins the same task on all network shares this person had access to.
- At 8pm automatic backups kick off
- At 11pm backups complete, having successfully backed up ruined shares.
- At 8am the next morning, AV server picks up signature for MyDoom.F. At same time, users begin to notice their files are gone. Alarms go off everywhere.
- At 11pm that second day, all corrupted/trashed files have been removed, all viruses eradicated, all data restored from 2 day old backups.
Summary: 1.5 to 2 days of work time lost by 60 employees, plus 12 hours @110$/hr for support consultant to help clean up the mess.
Needless to say, I wouldn't categorize the virii as doing little damage, whether they actually delete local files or not. Even had we not lost files, we still would have had a big cleanup job, and it still would have impacted our users.
Here's a big Fuck You to the person who wrote that variant, and to all the other virus writers out there.
What unbelievable spin, right in the first answer:
We position Windows server as a multifunction server that does a variety of things. So in some ways, we've got a McDonald's No. 5 super-size offering that costs $2.99 and someone just wants a Diet Coke that costs 99 cents. So do we cut the entire super-size No. 5 down to 98 cents, or do we try to find a way to just give somebody the Diet Coke if that's what they want?
So right away he takes a jab at Linux by comparing it to a Diet Coke, while comparing Windows to the full meal.
Slashdot Mirror
EV1 isn't publicly traded, and you don't know who their investors may be. You can bet though that Marsh is the major stockholder.
In any case, your suggestion of EV1 jumping on the SCO bandwagon for "marketshare" is really out there.
Hah, just kidding.
:P
I'll admit though to having watched the whole video as presented by MSN or some other pushy site.
She's trashy, and not very talented... but she is indeed hot in that video
Ok, I'm baffled now. How is the parent post a troll? If anything it could be redundant, because other people (mostly after me) posted about the misspelling.
Whichever mod did this is wacked.
I first read the parent post and thought, TROLL! But then I remembered this is /., where it's cool (apparently even "insightful") to bash the current administration.
The parent post is crap. It supplies nothing of value while simultaneously inviting endless political argument.
Thank you for your contribution.
Hah. MS is suggesting that a product that doesn't include Access is lacking... I call that "prevention".
Access is nifty and useful for small isolated circumstances, but like most MS products it pretends to be capable of doing big things. People try big things, and ultimately they waste time, lose data, and spend money migrating out/away. That's true for Word, Access, and Windows.
At my office we've encountered spreadsheets that got mysteriously corrupted, so much so that they wouldn't load in Excel without crashing it.
Actually that has happened in 3 different cases. One case apparently involved a moderate amount of data across too many sheets, and another case involved a small book with some invisible corruption that was fixed by exporting to tab delimited and then reimported.
What strikes me is that these drones can't even use a spell checker....
"OpenOffice does not have a dedicated development or support rteam."
Chuckle.
Gee, you should write a book.
Thanks for stating how great you are. Yours is the stuff books are made of.
I'm not even going to bother answering your points because that would interfere with your ego pumping demonstration.
Thank you for assuming that I have either not tried to teach or have instead been a poor teacher.
I've been highly successful teaching people who are willing to learn, but some people seem to refuse to behave properly. In some cases I've even had people demonstrate their understanding, only to learn that they quickly reverted to their previous bad ways once I left their side.
As for cert, it's not a guarantee of their competency, but at least it shows they have been taught something, and more importantly that they could demonstrate that they learned it. Then I can go to their management and say, "these people are intentionally ignoring proper use of X, and we know they did learn the proper use because they were certified." Now they can be talked to by their superiors, and it becomes a real issue of job security. That might give them impetus to take their computer use seriously.
I don't know what your experience is dealing with "normal" users in normal non-technical work environments, but mine is extensive. These are not bad or stupid people in general, but rather people who just apparently don't take computer use seriously.
Computers in most work environments aren't dangerous (as cars are), but they definitely pose financial dangers. 1.5days of total company downtime due to a user's poor judgement is very expensive. Even more expensive would be if a user inadvertently allowed a non-employee to gain access to the network (by giving out their password, for example). These are both common failures, and almost certainly the employees have been warned and warned.
I'm not an elitist as much as I am a pragmatist.
Software will not, for the forseeable future, be designed with the simplicity, correctness, and clarity that average users need. Even assuming it were possible to make software that required no training or no documentation, such software would certainly be considered "perfect" by some users, while simultaneously being deemed "wrong" or "difficult" by others.
The simple fact is that right now, most users don't know how to use the tools they've got. It's like many programmers and Vi. Vi is usually detested by first year users, accepted by 2nd or 3rd year users, and loved by long time users. Even after 15 years, occasionally I'll learn something new that really makes my editing life happier.
The same is true for normal people with Windows, a browser, etc. Do you realize how many users go to yahoo.com, then type in the web address into the yahoo search field? Do you know how many times I've tried to convince same users to just type the address into the address bar? Do you know how many times I've been called to help a user whose program has "vanished", simply because somehow the shortcut on the desktop is gone? How difficult is pushing Start->Programs and then looking for your program?
These people need training, and they need testing. Otherwise they won't take it seriously, and they'll continue to be sloppy, inefficient users that demand too much support.
This is SO true.
And it brings me to a point that has taken years for me to discover - computers should be treated somewhat like cars and airplanes.
You must study, practice, and demonstrate a minimum level of proficiency to be allowed to operate a car. The same is true of airplanes, but the effort is much greater (as is the cost).
It is an unfortunate effect of marketing that we have people believing computers should be so easy to use that they need no training. Look at a microwave - a true appliance. I'll bet most people only know how to use a microwave to 1/10 of its designed capability. And even then I suspect people don't use the features correctly.
Computer users should have to invest a certain amount of time in regular training - OS use, general application user, and custom application use. There should probably also be a required "Defensive Computing" class, with test, that is required once a year.
It's not all the fault of the users though. Some programs/OSs behave poorly, some hardware does actually fail, etc. But when fixing those problems, you (the IT person) aren't required to be nice to the moron who created the problem (since they are probably far away).
I can't figure out why, but I have more respect for the Nigerian scammers than I do this guy.
This is a transparent Paypal scam.
Heck, he could learn a thing or two from Darl in the proper way to run a scam.
No, there need be no specific compatibility in the new system. There just needs to be some layer between the two systems to manage the translation/interface.
Nobody expects everyone to collectively simultaneously switch. Sure some features may not exist in both systems, and in those cases a layer might not suffice, but much can be accomplished through translation.
I'm not talking about reinventing the wheel, I'm talking about taking what you've learned from the previous attempt - actual requirements and needs, the good and bad of your previous architecture, your development group dynamics (and developers' strengths), and adding in a little bit of new possibilities related to new methodologies and tools.
By your argument, we should be using Win98++ instead of a current version of NT, or minix++ instead of Linux, etc. etc.
Your experiences may be valid for the situations you've been in, but there are as many or more situations where a complete restart is most appropriate (taking the knowledge gained from the previous attempt with you, of course).
Yeah, heaven forbid we learn from our previous attempt and start fresh. We should aspire to do like Microsoft - maintain backward compatability above all other goals. Seems to work for them, right? It certainly makes things more secure...
Perils of Outsourcing
Darl is so hopelessly outclassed by Pamela Jones.
And I'm so pleased that one woman with motivation and smarts can so utterly rock SCO.
Your suggestion is just brilliant, especially considering this company has been operating with Windows since before Linux was anywhere near ready for the desktop.
And do you suggest we run our oil and gas (Windows only) software on Wine? Right.
Yours is the typical Linux zealotry that makes people want to avoid Linux.
I'm doing what I can to move us slowly to non-MS, but that will take years.
Yeah most are not too damaging, but here's my story.
Symantec's corporate antivirus software only allows for once daily automatic downloading of new virus signatures.
- Last week our AV server downloaded updates at 8am as usual.
- At 11am Symantec released new signature for MyDoom.F.
- At 1pm stupid_corporate_user_04 opens and unleashes MyDoom.F on the network. MyDoom.F blows away all MS Office and image files on stupid_corporate_user_04's machine, then begins the same task on all network shares this person had access to.
- At 8pm automatic backups kick off
- At 11pm backups complete, having successfully backed up ruined shares.
- At 8am the next morning, AV server picks up signature for MyDoom.F. At same time, users begin to notice their files are gone. Alarms go off everywhere.
- At 11pm that second day, all corrupted/trashed files have been removed, all viruses eradicated, all data restored from 2 day old backups.
Summary: 1.5 to 2 days of work time lost by 60 employees, plus 12 hours @110$/hr for support consultant to help clean up the mess.
Needless to say, I wouldn't categorize the virii as doing little damage, whether they actually delete local files or not. Even had we not lost files, we still would have had a big cleanup job, and it still would have impacted our users.
Here's a big Fuck You to the person who wrote that variant, and to all the other virus writers out there.
It's entirely lacking the use of colorful language that made the Info Minister so entertaining.
So it's really just embarassing with no redeeming humorous qualities.
That was good :)
Where's the +5 funny?
That's a poor analogy.
If car mfgs didn't as a rule include seat belts, but rather there were actual seat belt companies that sold them, then your analogy might work.
It's not so simple.
MS is more than welcome to make and SELL AV software.
But by including it free, if that's what ends up happening, then they are exercising their monopoly (again) to drive competitors into bankruptcy.
And even then it's not so simple. Obviously free software exists. But such software is not built into the OS.
OS + free browser, then + free webserver, now + free AV.
Thank you for translating that. I suppose I expected a reptilian response from the guy, so I read one.
:P
But if he is saying what you say he's saying, then he is insulting a good % of the US population
So right away he takes a jab at Linux by comparing it to a Diet Coke, while comparing Windows to the full meal.
In credible. Big balls or no brains, you decide.