That's your problem, had any of you consultants actually worked in, with or created a paperless office before?
I thought not, come back an say it's impossible when your not dealing with idiots.
If I were designing a 'paperless office' I would keep information given to me by other companies in it's original format unless there was a really good reason for scanning it in. I would also try to get the companies I dealt with to issue electronic invoices etc...
The only reason people were printing out documents to read is because there not used to reading things on a monitor, ditch the printers and get some nice clear monitors, in a few months everyone will be able to read from a monitor (make sure that they can copy and annotate the document too) and most of your problems will vanish.
If you need to move documents around PDA's are reasonable if you need to amend the document and USB keys are good for carrying them around, you can also encrypt the data on the USB key so you don't have the problems with data protection that you get with paper.
If you need people to collaborate then you can setup exchange to share data between people with ACL's and design forms and macros that allow people to communicate and work on ideas in real time, and you also get the benefits of a full history etc..
Basically, I wouldn't go for 100% paperless, that would be a nightmare, but you should try to remove paper from the system wherever possible and gain the benefits that electronic media provides; tracking, security, low cost, easy to reproduce and edit etc...
I've worked more-or-less paperless for the past few years and have helped setup tightly intergrated paperless systems based around Microsoft Exchange. The last time I used a piece of paper was a couple of weeks ago, it was 5cm graph paper and I used it to measure something.
The Linux box is probably more expensive because it comes with support and possibly commercial software (staroffice, viavoice etc...), the Windows box doesn't and nor does the ISO that you download of the net.
I very much doubt that Del would install an ISO off the net, so you'll still get more bang for you buck with the Linux box that a Windows one.
That's why they call them 'artists', but even that's pushing the definition if they don't create any original works, am I an artist because I can do painting by numbers?
I can't see any reason why people would use MySQL even for small single access databases, Berkley DB is faster and SQLLite can be faster and is much better, and for everything else there's PostgreSQL. I suppose there's a fair amount of money invested in newbie HOWTO's for MySQL and that can be the only reason for people (and many ISP's) to even bother installing MySQL.
I don't know what Dobbs is like nowadays but 5+ years ago it was always about a year out of date. e.g. Wavelets only made it into Dobbs well over a year after they were something of significant interest.
And then after 20 years of development they realize that it is just engineering with a little artistic design.
Why do I say that, well for one an art is something original and creative and that covers about 10% of the design of software, from then on it should be engineering.
I've seen code from coders who don't have the correct engineering skills (that's 80%+ of developers), it's often poorly written, poorly documented, has no tests in place, and runs as slow as a dog. This is highly typical of a software development department with no dueprocess in place and where management see the softwere development process as voodoo.
To be a bit more on topic, most of the companies I've worked at that looked at Linux dropped it because the development process is voodoo, it has no usability because the specs are always changing. Maybe if Linus had allowed a more 'stable' development cycle then there would be much more commercial take up of Linux which can only be a good thing. Some people with a hardline Linux/GPL pseudo commie stance think all software and should be free and there will be no compromises, I think that with the current user base the deeper the penetration of Linux and GPL software can only lead to a greater proportion of free software in the world and in that case specs are good.
Now, all I have to do is find out what in the kernel has trashed my HDD twice in as many months and I'll be a happy man.
I'm wondering if the best thing that can happen to Microsoft is that it starts to take over all manner of digital home appliances and a Government forces it to be split up into little pieces.
So why haven't they tried to extend the Voyager programs, (conspircy theroies asside), maybe they spent too much this year, or maybe there thinking about re-enabling Voyager before it goes intersteller.
There was an Apostrophe between consumer and s, according to the dictionary that makes the digital content a possesion of the consumer, what right has anyone to prevent the consumer from copying something which they own.
Ah, I'll look at webdav, I tried to share my TODO list just using group permissions on the fs but Kontact insists on writing a new file with the current users permissions.
Just storing the calender doesn't give the kind of fine grained ACL based permissions I get with exchange though.
I would like to take the intergration of kontact to another level, intergrated accross users, like sharing data in exchange (or even writing Outlook forms and macros to streamline the management of the whole business)
pop3s and imaps don't have enough granularity on permissions (does pop3 even support directories?) ssh, well yeh but try tellying molly on the from desk she has to ssh in to find out if I've received the foo files from bob.
I looked at webdav a long time ago, and it didn't seem to be that great, does it intergrate with kontact?
And given the popularity of pirated goods I expect the format that is easiest to pirate will win (and that may be plain old DVD is no one sees the benefit in Blu-ray HD DVD)
Bottom line is I think you have dramatically confused the processes of budget balancing and money distribution.
I think you've over stretched my idea (Using a single fund to run the entire government would be a complete disaster.), I'm sure others would also try to overstretch the idea but they go to the bottom of the pile next time. Red tape is always a problem with everything (except an anarchy, so I suppose it isn't really an anarchy) but if there's a fund available then it makes the red tape a little less.
As a example: if you live in a block of flats and the roof blows of one day there is a fund (made up from part of the ground rent) to fix the roof. The fund is also used for all kinds of other things and people can request that things are done (Like planting a few flowers), but I'm sure that fixing the roof that has blowing off will manage to cut though all the red tape pretty quickly. There is only one fund for the flats, and some of it is budgeted (cleaning the windows, hovering the communal hall way, planting flowers etc....) and some of it is reserved for emergencies or major works (like fitting double glazing)
Pubs have to pay a music license to have a juke box, and that also allows them to play other CD's. I download music via a feature of the internet called p2p file sharing, it doesn't make it legal.
Kontact's pretty good, but it doesn't have the ability to securely share data, which is one of the main Exchange features I use when Exchange is the mail server.
I don't know if KGroupware fixes this problem or not.
That still doesn't make it leagal to rip CD's to an Ipod and then share them without a license...
Also when a company is doing something like this it can be thought of as broadcasting (mainly if anyone entering the building has access or can hear the music)
You don't understand - this is not about surplus/deficit. It's not about how much money exists, but rather shuffling it around between appropriation. This is a red tape problem.
Please explain, (Under Clinton the tax income rose creating more money)
Yes, about a billion, and the definition of emergency is subjective enough to be a joke.
Sure there are going to be lots of things that want a slice of the cake, just like there are all the pretty things in the shops I would like to buy, and it's all about prioritizing. Instead of borrowing money to support natural disasters isn't it better to save a little, so that unexpected things like the Mars rovers lasting a little longer can be take account of more easily.
What you're describing is fiscal anarchy. Not really, but isn't anarchy supposed to be the ideal form of Government?
There have to be processes for making budget appropriations, and for large expenditures it takes time to get money re-directed. Yes, but with a fund it would take less time
This should not be a surprise, it's just the way the government - and really, any large organization - works. Hmm.. not so true, some companies make large expenditures from time to time and then amortize the debt so that the tax breaks come across a number of years as a way of saving / budgeting.
I remember the days when Altavista came along it was a godsend to the internet, now the might of Google has all but wiped out the competition. Sure Yahoo has a better media search, but have you ever tried typing in a question to the ask search engine yuk. (BTW they advertise the engine as being able to answer questions)
Google's ok, but it can be a nightmare trying to find something that you don't know quite what it's called. Try finding 'abstraction filtration comparison' by searching for software reverse engineering clean room copyright law, or whatever.
Google needs some kind of proximity, occurrence count, font size/layout ranking system.
Clinton managed to keep the budget in surplus and used the money for the social security fund, you could do something similar where the surplus at the end of the year get put into the social security fund.
As for who gets access well, the funding could be used for states of emergency, other exceptional events or events of special scientific intrest (Like the Hubble telescope needing a replacement mirror, funding for the mars rovers or the Voyager mission), and I'm sure there are other worthy causes.
I'm also that that $4.5M doesn't just go on the cost of a radio telescope to pick up signals from Voyager and that the path of Voyager is not going to change by NASA intervention.
I'm also assuming that Voyager is important to more than just the US (I'm certainly interested in it), so if the US doesn't want to pay for voyager anymore why don't they open it up to the rest of the world.
Now that's a lot of assumptions but I think there more-or-less correct, and if so then it is possible to have various contries all chipping in there little bit, say two contries split the task of recovering data, a nother couple split the task of processing the data etc.... A lot of scientific studdies work that way at the moment, just look at the Human genome project.
That's the way open sources works, by distributing the load though openness.
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That's your problem, had any of you consultants actually worked in, with or created a paperless office before?
I thought not, come back an say it's impossible when your not dealing with idiots.
If I were designing a 'paperless office' I would keep information given to me by other companies in it's original format unless there was a really good reason for scanning it in. I would also try to get the companies I dealt with to issue electronic invoices etc...
The only reason people were printing out documents to read is because there not used to reading things on a monitor, ditch the printers and get some nice clear monitors, in a few months everyone will be able to read from a monitor (make sure that they can copy and annotate the document too) and most of your problems will vanish.
If you need to move documents around PDA's are reasonable if you need to amend the document and USB keys are good for carrying them around, you can also encrypt the data on the USB key so you don't have the problems with data protection that you get with paper.
If you need people to collaborate then you can setup exchange to share data between people with ACL's and design forms and macros that allow people to communicate and work on ideas in real time, and you also get the benefits of a full history etc..
Basically, I wouldn't go for 100% paperless, that would be a nightmare, but you should try to remove paper from the system wherever possible and gain the benefits that electronic media provides; tracking, security, low cost, easy to reproduce and edit etc...
I've worked more-or-less paperless for the past few years and have helped setup tightly intergrated paperless systems based around Microsoft Exchange. The last time I used a piece of paper was a couple of weeks ago, it was 5cm graph paper and I used it to measure something.
People like MySQL because it's flexible.
Not really, it doesn't have enough features to be flexible in any kind of usefull way (when compaired with the other options)
The Linux box is probably more expensive because it comes with support and possibly commercial software (staroffice, viavoice etc...), the Windows box doesn't and nor does the ISO that you download of the net.
I very much doubt that Del would install an ISO off the net, so you'll still get more bang for you buck with the Linux box that a Windows one.
That's why they call them 'artists', but even that's pushing the definition if they don't create any original works, am I an artist because I can do painting by numbers?
How is that significantly different from the rest of the world?
I can't see any reason why people would use MySQL even for small single access databases, Berkley DB is faster and SQLLite can be faster and is much better, and for everything else there's PostgreSQL. I suppose there's a fair amount of money invested in newbie HOWTO's for MySQL and that can be the only reason for people (and many ISP's) to even bother installing MySQL.
I don't know what Dobbs is like nowadays but 5+ years ago it was always about a year out of date. e.g. Wavelets only made it into Dobbs well over a year after they were something of significant interest.
And then after 20 years of development they realize that it is just engineering with a little artistic design.
Why do I say that, well for one an art is something original and creative and that covers about 10% of the design of software, from then on it should be engineering.
I've seen code from coders who don't have the correct engineering skills (that's 80%+ of developers), it's often poorly written, poorly documented, has no tests in place, and runs as slow as a dog. This is highly typical of a software development department with no dueprocess in place and where management see the softwere development process as voodoo.
To be a bit more on topic, most of the companies I've worked at that looked at Linux dropped it because the development process is voodoo, it has no usability because the specs are always changing. Maybe if Linus had allowed a more 'stable' development cycle then there would be much more commercial take up of Linux which can only be a good thing. Some people with a hardline Linux/GPL pseudo commie stance think all software and should be free and there will be no compromises, I think that with the current user base the deeper the penetration of Linux and GPL software can only lead to a greater proportion of free software in the world and in that case specs are good.
Now, all I have to do is find out what in the kernel has trashed my HDD twice in as many months and I'll be a happy man.
Movies are real, but they do portray fictional or reinacted events.
I'm wondering if the best thing that can happen to Microsoft is that it starts to take over all manner of digital home appliances and a Government forces it to be split up into little pieces.
So why haven't they tried to extend the Voyager programs, (conspircy theroies asside), maybe they spent too much this year, or maybe there thinking about re-enabling Voyager before it goes intersteller.
There was an Apostrophe between consumer and s, according to the dictionary that makes the digital content a possesion of the consumer, what right has anyone to prevent the consumer from copying something which they own.
Ah, I'll look at webdav, I tried to share my TODO list just using group permissions on the fs but Kontact insists on writing a new file with the current users permissions.
Just storing the calender doesn't give the kind of fine grained ACL based permissions I get with exchange though.
I would like to take the intergration of kontact to another level, intergrated accross users, like sharing data in exchange (or even writing Outlook forms and macros to streamline the management of the whole business)
pop3s and imaps don't have enough granularity on permissions (does pop3 even support directories?)
ssh, well yeh but try tellying molly on the from desk she has to ssh in to find out if I've received the foo files from bob.
I looked at webdav a long time ago, and it didn't seem to be that great, does it intergrate with kontact?
I'n not supprised if the get $$$ for every HD DVD produced in H.264 format, I'd back it too if they were paying me.
And given the popularity of pirated goods I expect the format that is easiest to pirate will win (and that may be plain old DVD is no one sees the benefit in Blu-ray HD DVD)
Bottom line is I think you have dramatically confused the processes of budget balancing and money distribution.
I think you've over stretched my idea (Using a single fund to run the entire government would be a complete disaster.), I'm sure others would also try to overstretch the idea but they go to the bottom of the pile next time. Red tape is always a problem with everything (except an anarchy, so I suppose it isn't really an anarchy) but if there's a fund available then it makes the red tape a little less.
As a example: if you live in a block of flats and the roof blows of one day there is a fund (made up from part of the ground rent) to fix the roof. The fund is also used for all kinds of other things and people can request that things are done (Like planting a few flowers), but I'm sure that fixing the roof that has blowing off will manage to cut though all the red tape pretty quickly. There is only one fund for the flats, and some of it is budgeted (cleaning the windows, hovering the communal hall way, planting flowers etc....) and some of it is reserved for emergencies or major works (like fitting double glazing)
pub playing a CD.
Pubs have to pay a music license to have a juke box, and that also allows them to play other CD's.
I download music via a feature of the internet called p2p file sharing, it doesn't make it legal.
Kontact's pretty good, but it doesn't have the ability to securely share data, which is one of the main Exchange features I use when Exchange is the mail server.
I don't know if KGroupware fixes this problem or not.
That still doesn't make it leagal to rip CD's to an Ipod and then share them without a license...
Also when a company is doing something like this it can be thought of as broadcasting (mainly if anyone entering the building has access or can hear the music)
You don't understand - this is not about surplus/deficit. It's not about how much money exists, but rather shuffling it around between appropriation. This is a red tape problem.
Please explain, (Under Clinton the tax income rose creating more money)
Yes, about a billion, and the definition of emergency is subjective enough to be a joke.
Sure there are going to be lots of things that want a slice of the cake, just like there are all the pretty things in the shops I would like to buy, and it's all about prioritizing. Instead of borrowing money to support natural disasters isn't it better to save a little, so that unexpected things like the Mars rovers lasting a little longer can be take account of more easily.
What you're describing is fiscal anarchy.
Not really, but isn't anarchy supposed to be the ideal form of Government?
There have to be processes for making budget appropriations, and for large expenditures it takes time to get money re-directed.
Yes, but with a fund it would take less time
This should not be a surprise, it's just the way the government - and really, any large organization - works.
Hmm.. not so true, some companies make large expenditures from time to time and then amortize the debt so that the tax breaks come across a number of years as a way of saving / budgeting.
I remember the days when Altavista came along it was a godsend to the internet, now the might of Google has all but wiped out the competition. Sure Yahoo has a better media search, but have you ever tried typing in a question to the ask search engine yuk. (BTW they advertise the engine as being able to answer questions)
Google's ok, but it can be a nightmare trying to find something that you don't know quite what it's called. Try finding 'abstraction filtration comparison' by searching for software reverse engineering clean room copyright law, or whatever.
Google needs some kind of proximity, occurrence count, font size/layout ranking system.
Clinton managed to keep the budget in surplus and used the money for the social security fund, you could do something similar where the surplus at the end of the year get put into the social security fund.
As for who gets access well, the funding could be used for states of emergency, other exceptional events or events of special scientific intrest (Like the Hubble telescope needing a replacement mirror, funding for the mars rovers or the Voyager mission), and I'm sure there are other worthy causes.
Well, I'm going to defend my self.
I'm also that that $4.5M doesn't just go on the cost of a radio telescope to pick up signals from Voyager and that the path of Voyager is not going to change by NASA intervention.
I'm also assuming that Voyager is important to more than just the US (I'm certainly interested in it), so if the US doesn't want to pay for voyager anymore why don't they open it up to the rest of the world.
Now that's a lot of assumptions but I think there more-or-less correct, and if so then it is possible to have various contries all chipping in there little bit, say two contries split the task of recovering data, a nother couple split the task of processing the data etc.... A lot of scientific studdies work that way at the moment, just look at the Human genome project.
That's the way open sources works, by distributing the load though openness.