My expierience with the Dvorak keyboard was that after about a week of practice, I was "ok" with the layout, but my accuracy on Qwerty had suffered. Because my job demands so much keyboard work, I couldn't afford the slow-down during the learning process.
I was bitten by a spider over 8 years ago, and I still have not developed any super powers. If anything, I am less powerful now than I was 8 years ago. Spider bites do not work as advertised.
I am the network admin for a not-too-small Anheuser-Busch distributor. I can tell you a little about BudNET and how it tracks sales, from my experience. The original post states that AB most likely records your sale, what you paid, etc. As far as I know this is not the case in most operations. AB gets sales info from a distribution point of view. That means that they know what we, the warehouse, sold to the Piggly Wiggly, not what Piggly Wiggly sold to you, the retail consumer. When next we visit that Piggly Wiggly, we take an inventory. So in that regard AB also knows what the store sold between our visits, but not to whom.
All of the information that AB gets about sales comes from the distributors. A big part of my day is spent getting reports ready to go up to AB. The reports mention customer numbers, but these are *our* customers, not actual consumers. In some more advanced sales systems, retail pricing is indeed tracked. This type of information is used by AB and its distributors to do forcasting and the like. It is important to point out here that only retail stores who want to do so provide their own pricing and sales information to us. Most mom & pop operations don't bother. Many larger chains wich resources do provide this, as it also helps *them* to forcast. Once again though, we have no way of knowing what individuals are purchasing, or who those individuals are.
Also important to note is that much of our record keeping is mandated by law. The alcholic beverage commision in our state requires that we keep certain records on file for a given amount of time. This may be in addition to anything AB requires of us.
From the perspective of a network admin, BudNET is a pain in the rear. But I think that calling them Big Brother may be a little off the mark. Hope this helps to alleviate any major privacy concerns that you may have.
Your current list focuses a great deal on programming. There are other facets to the IT industry. Network and system configuration, maintenance and management are all parts of the business. Also, there should be some mention of project or people management, as the IT business is extremely project-oriented. I don't have any books to add to these new sections as I'm still looking for a set I like.
There is at least one ISP I know, Quik, of which provides global services yet has a number of local offices throughout the US. These local offices, at least the one in my area, has the feel of a small ISP, with excellent support, a locally run user newsgroup, local log-on servers and 24-hour tech support. I think it's been a very successful model for them. Quik is one of the few ISP's in this area that is still around and still has plenty of modems in the pool.
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My expierience with the Dvorak keyboard was that after about a week of practice, I was "ok" with the layout, but my accuracy on Qwerty had suffered. Because my job demands so much keyboard work, I couldn't afford the slow-down during the learning process.
I was bitten by a spider over 8 years ago, and I still have not developed any super powers. If anything, I am less powerful now than I was 8 years ago. Spider bites do not work as advertised.
I am the network admin for a not-too-small Anheuser-Busch distributor. I can tell you a little about BudNET and how it tracks sales, from my experience. The original post states that AB most likely records your sale, what you paid, etc. As far as I know this is not the case in most operations. AB gets sales info from a distribution point of view. That means that they know what we, the warehouse, sold to the Piggly Wiggly, not what Piggly Wiggly sold to you, the retail consumer. When next we visit that Piggly Wiggly, we take an inventory. So in that regard AB also knows what the store sold between our visits, but not to whom.
All of the information that AB gets about sales comes from the distributors. A big part of my day is spent getting reports ready to go up to AB. The reports mention customer numbers, but these are *our* customers, not actual consumers. In some more advanced sales systems, retail pricing is indeed tracked. This type of information is used by AB and its distributors to do forcasting and the like. It is important to point out here that only retail stores who want to do so provide their own pricing and sales information to us. Most mom & pop operations don't bother. Many larger chains wich resources do provide this, as it also helps *them* to forcast. Once again though, we have no way of knowing what individuals are purchasing, or who those individuals are.
Also important to note is that much of our record keeping is mandated by law. The alcholic beverage commision in our state requires that we keep certain records on file for a given amount of time. This may be in addition to anything AB requires of us.
From the perspective of a network admin, BudNET is a pain in the rear. But I think that calling them Big Brother may be a little off the mark. Hope this helps to alleviate any major privacy concerns that you may have.
-haroldnjoe
Your current list focuses a great deal on programming. There are other facets to the IT industry. Network and system configuration, maintenance and management are all parts of the business. Also, there should be some mention of project or people management, as the IT business is extremely project-oriented. I don't have any books to add to these new sections as I'm still looking for a set I like.
There is at least one ISP I know, Quik, of which provides global services yet has a number of local offices throughout the US. These local offices, at least the one in my area, has the feel of a small ISP, with excellent support, a locally run user newsgroup, local log-on servers and 24-hour tech support. I think it's been a very successful model for them. Quik is one of the few ISP's in this area that is still around and still has plenty of modems in the pool.