I've spoke to management regarding this same thing recently and have proposed migrating some to Staroffice. The argument I used was that most people in our company rarely ever use Word or Excel to its potential so buying Office every two years doesn't make sense when Office 97 will work for most people. Apparently the accountants are starting to get a little concerned over the license changes because it appears to be working. Management agreed to allow us to start with the I.S. Deparment for deployment of Staroffice and as the techs get trained on that product, we'll eventually migrate other departments. Some groups will still be allowed to stay on Office because there are apps that use Excel and Access and there's no way that we can get rid of those apps.
By the way, my company has about 6000 users and we purchase a copy of Windows and Office for nearly every person that comes to work for us. It's dumb but it's the policy here. After StarOffice, I'm going to work on getting Linux on the desktop. That's a greater battle though. I showcased RH 7.3 recently and some people were impressed but others were a little concerned that the new interface would intimidate some of our workers. Support costs were another issue that I agree with but I'm going to try to get management to allow some of the engineers to start using linux on their laptops and set aside a budget for books. After spending so much money over the years on MS training, it would be very hard to get the same Red Hat training for tech support.
When I was mentioned lowered expectations I meant don't put Star Wars on such a pedestal that any new movie in the franchise can't possibly meet the expectations that are out there. When everything is said and done, Star Wars is just a movie created by a human writer. I didn't mean to bring hollywood as a whole into the conversation.
I agree that there is a lot of crap out there but it isn't as bad as you make it out to be. Movies are a form of entertainment, they're not art. I pay my $8 to be entertained for a couple of hours and don't ever expect a life-altering experience. Look at Spider-man for instance. Regardless of the hype generated beforehand, I expected it to be just another movie based on a comic book. When it didn't turn out to be another Batman or X-Men, I was very very satisfied and I'm a relatively big comic fan. The fact that Parker didn't invent a substance that could revolutionalize the S&M industry but instead gained his web slinging ability through the alteration of a spider's genetic code actually satisfied me. If someone decides to make a movie about my favorite comic, Shazam!, I won't go into the movie demanding perfection. I'll go into the movie expecting to be entertained. If it doesn't happen, I won't freak out like some SW fans are currently doing. I'll just deal with it. $8 isn't exactly going to break me if I piss it away on a movie that sucked. I've spent far more money on certain women in my life and got far less out of the experience.
As someone who was required to take an Intro to Linux class in order to satisfy prerequisites, I can say from experience that Harley Hahn's Student Guide To Unix is an excellent textbook for such a class. While it's slightly outdated, the book did its job.
I agree with you but I also think the problem with Episode I as compared to 4-6 has to do with the lack of action in episode I. I still enjoyed TPM and Jar-Jar didn't annoy me as much as it did everyone else. Anakin did annoy the hell out of me though but since I've seen Star Wars again recently, I'm thinking that Lucas was maybe going for a cheesy pulp fiction type of movie and that's why he chose the actor that he chose to play the part of Anakin.
My wife and I were watching Star Wars the other night when it came on cable and I noticed that there were far more gun fights than TPM and the action scenes were much shorter. The pod scene in TPM was way too long...maybe.
People will still beat AOTC to hell because it just isn't perfect. Maybe fans need to lower their expectations a little and just enjoy the movie for what it is. Then again, I probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
I saw the Gamespot review a couple of days ago and for a moment got excited but when I saw that Disney Interactive is the producer, I'm going to avoid this one like the plague. In light of the crap that Disney has pulled recently, Disney is boycotted by my family. Just so you'll know, I believe that IP has its place in our society for the most part but Disney and their ilk have stepped out of line and it seems they're only going to get worse.
I love Tron as it was one of my most favorite movies while growing up (and still is) but Tron 2.0, either as a game or a movie, doesn't exist to me.
I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but just viewing my IDS logs for today, Nimda and Code Red are the two biggest problems hitting my network. We get about 800 attempts a day on our firewall from machines that are still infected by those two. I tried helping out the sites infected by attempting to let their admins know their servers were infected but I soon found that roughly 1/3 of my day was spent trying to contact an admin, most of which didn't know how to fix it or didn't care. Now I don't bother unless it's something like what happened two weeks ago where I was hit every three minutes with Code Red attempts for over 48 hours from the same host thereby causing my log files to grow to 180 MB and pissing me off in the process. Contacting their ISP (which is my ISP as well) was a joke. I just got an e-mail from their support this morning asking me to send the log files in an e-mail instead of an attachment because they apparently have problems opening a.txt file. It went away after about a week. Checking the dshield.org website showed that the IP in question was apparently affecting a lot of other sites as well. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, Nimda and Code Red are still a huge problem.
Their technical support blows. There's a problem with the battery and charger on the Rio 800 MP3 player. On the website, there is a link to order a replacement charger. I filled out the order form on 12/31/01. I then filled it out again on 1/31/02. I still haven't received the charger nor an e-mail. I sent countless e-mails to SonicBlue but got no response. I tried calling but they want $19.95 a call so I said forget it.
I'm curious as to how this might affect future lawsuits. Since it is a settlement, can this case be used as leverage against Universal or others planning the same thing?
This is so true considering that the government looks more favorably on attendance rather than performance to determine raises and promotions. If you don't mind waiting in line for a promotion because some pinhead has been in the IS department for 8 months after he transferred out of the accounting department (where he worked for 15 years prior but the job has been phased out because of budget cuts) go for it. You should be happy.
Fuck you. Honestly. Fuck you. What gives you the right to dictate how my tuition dollars should be spent? Are you paying for my tuition, room & board, fees, books, etc? No - I am. Not financial aid & not my parents - I am.
Yeah well so are the other students trying to use the Internet but can't because dipshits like yourself think you own the pipe. Maybe when you get into the real world you'll understand how valuable bandwidth is to an organization that needs it. Besides, do you just accept it when tuition goes up or do you bitch like everyone else on campus?
Did it ever occur to you that all of this "ridiculous" file sharing, whether it be through Napster, Gnutella, or good ol' fashioned FTP, is useful to the learning process?...... Maybe I benefit from being able to run and FTP server and play around with it, and in doing so - learn about it.
Yes it has. Why can't you run an FTP server that isn't on the Internet? It'll work all the same regardless of what network you're on. You set it up and upload or download files to it. What's the big deal? Do you really have to host files for your friends "because it's cool" and the bandwidth is cheap? Oh wait, maybe you didn't get to that part in your classes yet. Ask your teachers, I'm sure they'll explain subnetting a little better for you. Sorry for the confusion.
And, email for file sharing??? What the hell planet are you on? What files do you need to share that are so big that you can't store them on your PC or the class home directory? My point to e-mailling was that large files don't need to leave the campus from non-vital access points. If there is a legitimate use for the file, send it out through your class or instructor's computer. What's the big deal?
Also, pherhaps it's nice for a poor college student to be able to entertain themselves with new and interesting things on a PC they've already paid for, through bandwidth they've already paid for. It beats getting yourself deeper into debt. Finally, if file sharing doesn't educate students about the ins-and-outs of copyright law and the ideas and concepts behind intellectual property, I don't know what will.
Napster, Gnutella, or any of the other bandwidth sucking apps aren't teaching you a damned thing other than how to steal while pretending that you're doing the right thing. Don't try to rationalize it, you're full of shit if you do.
What the fuck does copyright law have to do with being a systems administrator? Give me a fucking break man. The last time I dealt with copyright law was when someone was downloading warez and I called HR after repeated warnings. Once that occurred, it was out of my hands. It's not my job to worry about that crap unless it's my intellectual property we're dealing with and in that case, I'm going to fight the fuckwads who try to steal it. I've been a sysadmin for 9 years now and I have never gotten involved in politics. It's not my job.
I'm not saying stop file sharing. I'm saying limit the ability to the point that it's not worth the effort by setting up QoS on the routers at non-vital access points such as the dorms. You can open the bandwidth up in the classrooms and offices but leave the students' ability crippled but not broken.
You don't believe that file sharing can be stopped. I do think it's possible if the right SysAdmin with the university's interests in mind worked there.
The universities really ought to set lower expectations on bandwidth by setting up QoS on their routers and allowing greater bandwidth from the classrooms and for web browsing in the libraries while dropping other unnecessary protocols such as those used by file sharing clients to almost non-existent levels. It's ridiculous that the universities allow file sharing to go on like they have. If the file is important to school work, the student can e-mail it.
As someone mentioned, it's the Technoscout ad. How is this differnt from something like health magazines masquerading supplement ads as news? Infomercials can be considered the same thing.
This isn't exactly groundbreaking news here, devious maybe if you're too dumb to be able to distinguish between what is real and what is bullshit.
Apple really ought to get back into the business of selling computers rather than furniture. Flamboyancy only appeals to a niche market and it's appeal is usually short run. Apple would probably be better off giving us a reason to buy their computer for other purposes besides it looking great on a desk and your friends might be impressed.
I believe that the problem with athletes considering doping and gene therapy has to do with the lack of money in Olympic sports, well sports in general for that matter. There is a lot of pressure for these guys to win because they have to feed their families.
Sponsorship in sports is extremely important because without a sponsor, you have to get a real job and that takes away from your training time. So what is an athlete to do? He decides to dope so that he can gain the advantage in a race, get the headlines for his team and sponsors and continue to get another paycheck. It happens all the time and while I think doping is pretty stupid and don't condone it, I can see why some athletes do it. There's a lot of pressure to produce results and if others are possibly cheating, you have to cheat as well to hang with the rest of the pack.
Wow, I thought it was just our group of tech weenies that does this. You're absolutely right about this. In our company, the CEO, CIO, CFO, managers along with the engineers gets together nearly every weekend on the trails. No one talks shop and everyone has a shitload of fun. It sure beats the hell out that stupid game of golf. Besides, the scars from running into trees or crashing onto rocks is way cooler to talk about on Monday than that lethargic putt on the 8th hole.
Who's right? Depends on who you ask. But, I believe that all concerned parties sometimes have motivations that are at least a little bit more complex than surfing porn on company time
Your client is right. Since you're surfing on their line and they're paying for it, they can make the rules. If you need access to the Internet for Hotmail or Yahoo, you should subscribe to an ISP and use your wireless phone for access.
Internet acess is a priviledge, not a right at my company. Consultants are probably last on the list in terms of providing access to the Internet considering we don't have much recourse if one of the consultant-bots brings malicious code into our network.
Slashdot Mirror
"what would happen if Hollywood suddenly got the 'bright' idea to limit 35mm reel distribution within the next few years?"
There would be less movies in the theaters.
I've spoke to management regarding this same thing recently and have proposed migrating some to Staroffice. The argument I used was that most people in our company rarely ever use Word or Excel to its potential so buying Office every two years doesn't make sense when Office 97 will work for most people. Apparently the accountants are starting to get a little concerned over the license changes because it appears to be working. Management agreed to allow us to start with the I.S. Deparment for deployment of Staroffice and as the techs get trained on that product, we'll eventually migrate other departments. Some groups will still be allowed to stay on Office because there are apps that use Excel and Access and there's no way that we can get rid of those apps.
By the way, my company has about 6000 users and we purchase a copy of Windows and Office for nearly every person that comes to work for us. It's dumb but it's the policy here. After StarOffice, I'm going to work on getting Linux on the desktop. That's a greater battle though. I showcased RH 7.3 recently and some people were impressed but others were a little concerned that the new interface would intimidate some of our workers. Support costs were another issue that I agree with but I'm going to try to get management to allow some of the engineers to start using linux on their laptops and set aside a budget for books. After spending so much money over the years on MS training, it would be very hard to get the same Red Hat training for tech support.
I agree but some fans out there are acting as though Lucas and the studios owes the fans the equivalent of the Bible. It's just a friggin' movie.
When I was mentioned lowered expectations I meant don't put Star Wars on such a pedestal that any new movie in the franchise can't possibly meet the expectations that are out there. When everything is said and done, Star Wars is just a movie created by a human writer. I didn't mean to bring hollywood as a whole into the conversation.
I agree that there is a lot of crap out there but it isn't as bad as you make it out to be. Movies are a form of entertainment, they're not art. I pay my $8 to be entertained for a couple of hours and don't ever expect a life-altering experience. Look at Spider-man for instance. Regardless of the hype generated beforehand, I expected it to be just another movie based on a comic book. When it didn't turn out to be another Batman or X-Men, I was very very satisfied and I'm a relatively big comic fan. The fact that Parker didn't invent a substance that could revolutionalize the S&M industry but instead gained his web slinging ability through the alteration of a spider's genetic code actually satisfied me. If someone decides to make a movie about my favorite comic, Shazam!, I won't go into the movie demanding perfection. I'll go into the movie expecting to be entertained. If it doesn't happen, I won't freak out like some SW fans are currently doing. I'll just deal with it. $8 isn't exactly going to break me if I piss it away on a movie that sucked. I've spent far more money on certain women in my life and got far less out of the experience.
As someone who was required to take an Intro to Linux class in order to satisfy prerequisites, I can say from experience that Harley Hahn's Student Guide To Unix is an excellent textbook for such a class. While it's slightly outdated, the book did its job.
I agree with you but I also think the problem with Episode I as compared to 4-6 has to do with the lack of action in episode I. I still enjoyed TPM and Jar-Jar didn't annoy me as much as it did everyone else. Anakin did annoy the hell out of me though but since I've seen Star Wars again recently, I'm thinking that Lucas was maybe going for a cheesy pulp fiction type of movie and that's why he chose the actor that he chose to play the part of Anakin.
My wife and I were watching Star Wars the other night when it came on cable and I noticed that there were far more gun fights than TPM and the action scenes were much shorter. The pod scene in TPM was way too long...maybe.
People will still beat AOTC to hell because it just isn't perfect. Maybe fans need to lower their expectations a little and just enjoy the movie for what it is. Then again, I probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
To counter that, I'll just say that I wasn't planning on seeing it but now that I've previewed it, I want to watch it in the theater.
I saw the Gamespot review a couple of days ago and for a moment got excited but when I saw that Disney Interactive is the producer, I'm going to avoid this one like the plague. In light of the crap that Disney has pulled recently, Disney is boycotted by my family. Just so you'll know, I believe that IP has its place in our society for the most part but Disney and their ilk have stepped out of line and it seems they're only going to get worse.
I love Tron as it was one of my most favorite movies while growing up (and still is) but Tron 2.0, either as a game or a movie, doesn't exist to me.
that the Internet is a public forum and if they want to avoid people linking to a publicly accessible page, they should require at least a login.
I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but just viewing my IDS logs for today, Nimda and Code Red are the two biggest problems hitting my network. We get about 800 attempts a day on our firewall from machines that are still infected by those two. I tried helping out the sites infected by attempting to let their admins know their servers were infected but I soon found that roughly 1/3 of my day was spent trying to contact an admin, most of which didn't know how to fix it or didn't care. Now I don't bother unless it's something like what happened two weeks ago where I was hit every three minutes with Code Red attempts for over 48 hours from the same host thereby causing my log files to grow to 180 MB and pissing me off in the process. Contacting their ISP (which is my ISP as well) was a joke. I just got an e-mail from their support this morning asking me to send the log files in an e-mail instead of an attachment because they apparently have problems opening a .txt file. It went away after about a week. Checking the dshield.org website showed that the IP in question was apparently affecting a lot of other sites as well. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, Nimda and Code Red are still a huge problem.
what the Christian Science Monitor says. The Internet is just a another way to get quality porn.
Their technical support blows. There's a problem with the battery and charger on the Rio 800 MP3 player. On the website, there is a link to order a replacement charger. I filled out the order form on 12/31/01. I then filled it out again on 1/31/02. I still haven't received the charger nor an e-mail. I sent countless e-mails to SonicBlue but got no response. I tried calling but they want $19.95 a call so I said forget it.
Don't believe me? Check this out.
I'm curious as to how this might affect future lawsuits. Since it is a settlement, can this case be used as leverage against Universal or others planning the same thing?
This is so true considering that the government looks more favorably on attendance rather than performance to determine raises and promotions. If you don't mind waiting in line for a promotion because some pinhead has been in the IS department for 8 months after he transferred out of the accounting department (where he worked for 15 years prior but the job has been phased out because of budget cuts) go for it. You should be happy.
Time to feed the trolls....
...... Maybe I benefit from being able to run and FTP server and play around with it, and in doing so - learn about it.
Fuck you. Honestly. Fuck you. What gives you the right to dictate how my tuition dollars should be spent? Are you paying for my tuition, room & board, fees, books, etc? No - I am. Not financial aid & not my parents - I am.
Yeah well so are the other students trying to use the Internet but can't because dipshits like yourself think you own the pipe. Maybe when you get into the real world you'll understand how valuable bandwidth is to an organization that needs it. Besides, do you just accept it when tuition goes up or do you bitch like everyone else on campus?
Did it ever occur to you that all of this "ridiculous" file sharing, whether it be through Napster, Gnutella, or good ol' fashioned FTP, is useful to the learning process?
Yes it has. Why can't you run an FTP server that isn't on the Internet? It'll work all the same regardless of what network you're on. You set it up and upload or download files to it. What's the big deal? Do you really have to host files for your friends "because it's cool" and the bandwidth is cheap? Oh wait, maybe you didn't get to that part in your classes yet. Ask your teachers, I'm sure they'll explain subnetting a little better for you. Sorry for the confusion.
And, email for file sharing??? What the hell planet are you on?
What files do you need to share that are so big that you can't store them on your PC or the class home directory? My point to e-mailling was that large files don't need to leave the campus from non-vital access points. If there is a legitimate use for the file, send it out through your class or instructor's computer. What's the big deal?
Also, pherhaps it's nice for a poor college student to be able to entertain themselves with new and interesting things on a PC they've already paid for, through bandwidth they've already paid for. It beats getting yourself deeper into debt. Finally, if file sharing doesn't educate students about the ins-and-outs of copyright law and the ideas and concepts behind intellectual property, I don't know what will.
Napster, Gnutella, or any of the other bandwidth sucking apps aren't teaching you a damned thing other than how to steal while pretending that you're doing the right thing. Don't try to rationalize it, you're full of shit if you do.
What the fuck does copyright law have to do with being a systems administrator? Give me a fucking break man. The last time I dealt with copyright law was when someone was downloading warez and I called HR after repeated warnings. Once that occurred, it was out of my hands. It's not my job to worry about that crap unless it's my intellectual property we're dealing with and in that case, I'm going to fight the fuckwads who try to steal it. I've been a sysadmin for 9 years now and I have never gotten involved in politics. It's not my job.
Finally, fuck you too.
I'm not saying stop file sharing. I'm saying limit the ability to the point that it's not worth the effort by setting up QoS on the routers at non-vital access points such as the dorms. You can open the bandwidth up in the classrooms and offices but leave the students' ability crippled but not broken.
You don't believe that file sharing can be stopped. I do think it's possible if the right SysAdmin with the university's interests in mind worked there.
The universities really ought to set lower expectations on bandwidth by setting up QoS on their routers and allowing greater bandwidth from the classrooms and for web browsing in the libraries while dropping other unnecessary protocols such as those used by file sharing clients to almost non-existent levels. It's ridiculous that the universities allow file sharing to go on like they have. If the file is important to school work, the student can e-mail it.
As someone mentioned, it's the Technoscout ad. How is this differnt from something like health magazines masquerading supplement ads as news? Infomercials can be considered the same thing.
This isn't exactly groundbreaking news here, devious maybe if you're too dumb to be able to distinguish between what is real and what is bullshit.
You're right. That was pretty stupid.
Kinda makes me wonder if there are Microsoft Certified Patent Clerks out there.
but I do wonder how they assigned the date "of at least 6000 years ago" to this
By the sign on one of the restaurant doors that said "est. 4000 b.c."
Apple really ought to get back into the business of selling computers rather than furniture. Flamboyancy only appeals to a niche market and it's appeal is usually short run. Apple would probably be better off giving us a reason to buy their computer for other purposes besides it looking great on a desk and your friends might be impressed.
I believe that the problem with athletes considering doping and gene therapy has to do with the lack of money in Olympic sports, well sports in general for that matter. There is a lot of pressure for these guys to win because they have to feed their families.
Sponsorship in sports is extremely important because without a sponsor, you have to get a real job and that takes away from your training time. So what is an athlete to do? He decides to dope so that he can gain the advantage in a race, get the headlines for his team and sponsors and continue to get another paycheck. It happens all the time and while I think doping is pretty stupid and don't condone it, I can see why some athletes do it. There's a lot of pressure to produce results and if others are possibly cheating, you have to cheat as well to hang with the rest of the pack.
Wow, I thought it was just our group of tech weenies that does this. You're absolutely right about this. In our company, the CEO, CIO, CFO, managers along with the engineers gets together nearly every weekend on the trails. No one talks shop and everyone has a shitload of fun. It sure beats the hell out that stupid game of golf. Besides, the scars from running into trees or crashing onto rocks is way cooler to talk about on Monday than that lethargic putt on the 8th hole.
Who's right? Depends on who you ask. But, I believe that all concerned parties sometimes have motivations that are at least a little bit more complex than surfing porn on company time
Your client is right. Since you're surfing on their line and they're paying for it, they can make the rules. If you need access to the Internet for Hotmail or Yahoo, you should subscribe to an ISP and use your wireless phone for access.
Internet acess is a priviledge, not a right at my company. Consultants are probably last on the list in terms of providing access to the Internet considering we don't have much recourse if one of the consultant-bots brings malicious code into our network.