Receptionist type: "Hello Dell? This Optiplex, serial number XXXX isn't working. Send another." Dell: "It will be there in 3 days" [click] Cost -- 0 additional FTEs.
So, is the employee supposed to just sit idly for 3 days waiting for their new system to come? If you need a technician to load their files onto a new computer, then you still need local IT staff. I seriously doubt that any company is able to rely only on service contracts without any local support.
The highest ranking IT guy at my location makes less than what you quoted for an "FTE" (full time engineer?) If you have to pay out $70K a year for a basic computer technician, you should seriously consider relocating your business to an area with cheaper labor. That's even figuring in about 10-20% additional cost for things like benefits and insurance.
It doesn't take too many skills to diagnose and repair computers, we are talking A+ type stuff here.
Posting anonymously because you work for Dell perchance?
Our company has 120 employees, and we build and maintain our own computers. It takes about 20-30% of the time of one of the IT guys to handle building and maintaining systems.
Scaling that up, one full time IT guy could manage building, upgrading, and supporting at least 300 systems. It's a hell of a lot cheaper, and more efficient than buying packaged systems. Even compared with next day onsite contracts, we can have a system back up in a matter of hours, keeping just a couple spares of each part in stock.
You'd also have to consider, even if you bought some huge contract from Dell, you will need some sort of in-house support for trivial problems and for custom apps. Having your employees call Dell directly for support is inefficient, as they have to walk them through the problem over the phone, when your in house guy can come to your desk and resolve the problem in a matter of seconds usually.
Anyway, I'd venture to bet there are a lot of mid-sized companies with 100-300 employees that do the same thing we do. I see want ads for technicians that imply they do also.
How many DRM chipped boards are going to sell to non-OEMs? Zero. Someone would have to be a total idiot to buy crippled hardware like that.
"Non-DRM" will be a marketing buzzword with the component resellers that sell to non-OEM system builders.
The market will kill this technology. Once people who buy pre-packaged systems realize that their systems are crippled in relation to systems that were built from scratch, Dell and such will start feeling the pressure as people start to get their geek friends or their local computer shop to build systems for them.
Out of curiosity, why does it matter if "they" spy on you?
Maybe you are an apathetic sheep, but there are a lot of politically active people out there that may not be exercising their rights in a way that is popular with the government. You know, people like the EFF and such. I'm sure you have heard of them.
You need to fight for the rights of the people that are actively working to protect your rights, as a minimum. The government has abused their survelliance powers countless times in the past to monitor people who fight for political change. In recent times, just fighting to keep the status quo makes you a radical.
So live in your little world, pray that nothing happens, and leave your future to chance. At least you won't feel defeated when all your rights are gone, you never fought for them in the first place.
abbie hoffman fbi files adolph hitler fbi files al capone fbi files albert einstein fbi files amelia earhart fbi/navy/state dept. files bugsy siegel fbi files cesar chavez/united farm workers fbi files charlie chaplin fbi files dwight d. eisenhower presidential papers eleanor roosevelt fbi files elvis presley fbi files ernest hemingway fbi files frank sinatra fbi files franklin d. roosevelt presidential papers gerald r. ford presidential papers harry s. truman presidential papers huey p. long fbi files hugh hefner/playboy fbi files j. edgar hoover fbi files jackie robinson fbi files john kennedy-jacqueline fbi/secret service/cia/nsa and other files john lennon fbi files john steinbeck fbi files joseph mccarthy fbi files joseph p. kennedy fbi files josephine baker fbi files leon trotsky fbi files lucille ball/desi arnaz fbi files lucky luciano fbi files mafia monograph fbi files malcolm x fbi files marilyn monroe fbi files martin luther king jr. fbi files nelson rockefeller fbi files oleg penkovsky - soviet double agent - cia files pablo picasso fbi files paul robeson fbi files richard nathaniel wright fbi files robert f. kennedy fbi files ronald reagan presidential papers spiro agnew fbi files susan b. anthony historical documents thurgood marshall fbi files w.e.b. dubois fbi files wallace d. fard/nation of islam fbi files walt disney fbi files walter winchell fbi files watergate fbi files/nixon recordings and transcripts wright brothers photography
I'm glad they were keeping tabs on people like W.E.B Dubois, Pablo Picasso, and Susan B Anthony. If we allow people to think for themselves and lead other people to think for themselves, the terrorists have already won.
I agree about using hard disks for the most part, but there are DVD changers that hold several hundred disks, did you really think he was going to buy hundreds of 5 1/4 inch DVD drives, one per disk?
Who says the attack is local? Your packets cross from 5 to 20 hops before getting to their destination. Routers can be compromised, theough security weaknesses or through deliberate government interference. OpenSSH also allows for host authentication, so you know you are really talking to who you think you are. A secure transport is about more than some guy on your LAN sniffing your password.
That would require the sensitive information to be automatically accessible from a network connected (in some form) computer. Sure, you could have it dial in, and keep the modem out of auto-answer mode, but I seriously doubt an ex-spook would make the mistake of storing sensitive information in a network accessible computer.
Well this is getting a little offtopic, but if you have a usenet reader that acts more like a mail client (or is also a mail client), then basically all the usenet groups you are subscribed to look like a bunch of pre-sorted mailboxes.
ease of finding a flaws if you have the source code ( Not so Good Thing ).
This is contradictory to the rest of your post. You mention window of exposure. While you might argue the window of exposure starts with public disclosure, it really does not.
A flaw that is found in a piece of software often was there for years. The window of exposure actually starts when the flaw is introduced, since from that point forward, there is the possibility of a person or group having knowledge of the flaw and not releasing it.
It's entirely possible that there is a blackhat group or groups, which we will probably never discover, that is harboring hundreds or thousands of unreleased vulnerabilites. Such a group would have immense power, the ability to disrupt the information systems of nearly every company on the planet, on a whim, or when hired to do so.
Open source, with it's ease of finding flaws, reduces this "true window" of exposure.
It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that all security threats are script kiddies running tools against well known vulernabilities, since the majority of the attacks reported are of that nature, but that doesn't mean that the threat of a true blackhat group doesn't exist, and couldn't be devestating.
I have two way satellite, Starband. The upstream is about the same speed as a 56K modem, the downstream is pretty fast (80-100kilobytes/sec). Latency is minimum 600ms.
It's great for downloading large files, and chatting on IRC, and web browsing isn't too bad.
It really sucks at certain things, like telnet or ssh, it's tedious to use those over a satellite link.
It all depends on what you need it for, but satellites in their current high earth orbits are not for every application.
These guys are pretty good for buying small uranium ore samples to test geiger counters with. They also stock uranium doped glass marbles that really light up under black light. Pretty cool radioactive toys.
Sorry, I screwed that up, the thermal effects follow the inverse square law, the area scales linearly with yield, the blast effects follow the inverse cube law, the volume scales linearly with yield. (More or less).
Even then, it's not what you would think. The thermal effects scale almost linearly with yield, but the blast effects follow the inverse square law.
A 100 MT bomb is only about three times more powerful than a 10 MT bomb as far as blast effects go.
For this reason, all the larger bombs were abandoned in favor of smaller and more managable ones. They also use MIRV clustering now. Just image a beo... nevermind.
It would depend on the mass and trajectory. Even an 1/2 earth sized object could pass through the atmosphere and not strike, if it was not coming directly at us. Of course that would mess up our orbit if it was that large, and we might capture it if it were going slowly enough.
As an addendum, the hard disks must be screwed in if you put them in the slide out trays. Of course it's easy to screw them down since you can remove the tray. You could in theory not use screws for the hard disk if you put them in the externally accessible 3.5inch bays, but I don't think it's a good idea to install a hard disk without screws.
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It's very easy if you cut the binding off the book and use a copier that has an autofeeder tray for the source documents.
Granted this is a little more effort to duplicate the book, but the basic premise is valid.
Taking pedantry even further, your definitions all have one key word in them, "earth". :)
The "getting-it-on" department? I hope you and Timothy aren't THAT lonely today!
(Where is the rest of the crew lately anyway?)
Receptionist type: "Hello Dell? This Optiplex, serial number XXXX isn't working. Send another."
Dell: "It will be there in 3 days" [click]
Cost -- 0 additional FTEs.
So, is the employee supposed to just sit idly for 3 days waiting for their new system to come? If you need a technician to load their files onto a new computer, then you still need local IT staff. I seriously doubt that any company is able to rely only on service contracts without any local support.
The highest ranking IT guy at my location makes less than what you quoted for an "FTE" (full time engineer?) If you have to pay out $70K a year for a basic computer technician, you should seriously consider relocating your business to an area with cheaper labor. That's even figuring in about 10-20% additional cost for things like benefits and insurance.
It doesn't take too many skills to diagnose and repair computers, we are talking A+ type stuff here.
Posting anonymously because you work for Dell perchance?
Our company has 120 employees, and we build and maintain our own computers. It takes about 20-30% of the time of one of the IT guys to handle building and maintaining systems.
Scaling that up, one full time IT guy could manage building, upgrading, and supporting at least 300 systems. It's a hell of a lot cheaper, and more efficient than buying packaged systems. Even compared with next day onsite contracts, we can have a system back up in a matter of hours, keeping just a couple spares of each part in stock.
You'd also have to consider, even if you bought some huge contract from Dell, you will need some sort of in-house support for trivial problems and for custom apps. Having your employees call Dell directly for support is inefficient, as they have to walk them through the problem over the phone, when your in house guy can come to your desk and resolve the problem in a matter of seconds usually.
Anyway, I'd venture to bet there are a lot of mid-sized companies with 100-300 employees that do the same thing we do. I see want ads for technicians that imply they do also.
How many DRM chipped boards are going to sell to non-OEMs? Zero. Someone would have to be a total idiot to buy crippled hardware like that.
"Non-DRM" will be a marketing buzzword with the component resellers that sell to non-OEM system builders.
The market will kill this technology. Once people who buy pre-packaged systems realize that their systems are crippled in relation to systems that were built from scratch, Dell and such will start feeling the pressure as people start to get their geek friends or their local computer shop to build systems for them.
The whole process takes just 250 nanoseconds - nearly a million times faster than the blink of an eye.
Thanks for the meaningful comparison.
In other news, computers can add 2+2 three trillion times faster than you can commute to work. More at 11.
Actually, they use Hydrogen too, as it is very much cheaper, and doesn't need to be carted around in tanks.
Hydrogen can be generated in large amounts using a chemical reaction.
(Calcuim Hydride + water-> Hydrogen Gas + Slaked Lime)
Slaked Lime is pretty environmentally safe to get rid of, and requires little special handling.
I think it's a typo. After all, 1.4Mhz could barely provide 56k modem speeds. Probably is 1.4Ghz.
You are correct. I made that post very late last night, and wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been.
Out of curiosity, why does it matter if "they" spy on you?
Maybe you are an apathetic sheep, but there are a lot of politically active people out there that may not be exercising their rights in a way that is popular with the government. You know, people like the EFF and such. I'm sure you have heard of them.
You need to fight for the rights of the people that are actively working to protect your rights, as a minimum. The government has abused their survelliance powers countless times in the past to monitor people who fight for political change. In recent times, just fighting to keep the status quo makes you a radical.
So live in your little world, pray that nothing happens, and leave your future to chance. At least you won't feel defeated when all your rights are gone, you never fought for them in the first place.
Oh, You mean this these?
abbie hoffman fbi files
adolph hitler fbi files
al capone fbi files
albert einstein fbi files
amelia earhart fbi/navy/state dept. files
bugsy siegel fbi files
cesar chavez/united farm workers fbi files
charlie chaplin fbi files
dwight d. eisenhower presidential papers
eleanor roosevelt fbi files
elvis presley fbi files
ernest hemingway fbi files
frank sinatra fbi files
franklin d. roosevelt presidential papers
gerald r. ford presidential papers
harry s. truman presidential papers
huey p. long fbi files
hugh hefner/playboy fbi files
j. edgar hoover fbi files
jackie robinson fbi files
john kennedy-jacqueline fbi/secret service/cia/nsa and other files
john lennon fbi files
john steinbeck fbi files
joseph mccarthy fbi files
joseph p. kennedy fbi files
josephine baker fbi files
leon trotsky fbi files
lucille ball/desi arnaz fbi files
lucky luciano fbi files
mafia monograph fbi files
malcolm x fbi files
marilyn monroe fbi files
martin luther king jr. fbi files
nelson rockefeller fbi files
oleg penkovsky - soviet double agent - cia files
pablo picasso fbi files
paul robeson fbi files
richard nathaniel wright fbi files
robert f. kennedy fbi files
ronald reagan presidential papers
spiro agnew fbi files
susan b. anthony historical documents
thurgood marshall fbi files
w.e.b. dubois fbi files
wallace d. fard/nation of islam fbi files
walt disney fbi files
walter winchell fbi files
watergate fbi files/nixon recordings and transcripts
wright brothers photography
I'm glad they were keeping tabs on people like W.E.B Dubois, Pablo Picasso, and Susan B Anthony. If we allow people to think for themselves and lead other people to think for themselves, the terrorists have already won.
I agree about using hard disks for the most part, but there are DVD changers that hold several hundred disks, did you really think he was going to buy hundreds of 5 1/4 inch DVD drives, one per disk?
Who says the attack is local? Your packets cross from 5 to 20 hops before getting to their destination. Routers can be compromised, theough security weaknesses or through deliberate government interference. OpenSSH also allows for host authentication, so you know you are really talking to who you think you are. A secure transport is about more than some guy on your LAN sniffing your password.
That would require the sensitive information to be automatically accessible from a network connected (in some form) computer. Sure, you could have it dial in, and keep the modem out of auto-answer mode, but I seriously doubt an ex-spook would make the mistake of storing sensitive information in a network accessible computer.
Well this is getting a little offtopic, but if you have a usenet reader that acts more like a mail client (or is also a mail client), then basically all the usenet groups you are subscribed to look like a bunch of pre-sorted mailboxes.
ease of finding a flaws if you have the source code ( Not so Good Thing ).
This is contradictory to the rest of your post. You mention window of exposure. While you might argue the window of exposure starts with public disclosure, it really does not.
A flaw that is found in a piece of software often was there for years. The window of exposure actually starts when the flaw is introduced, since from that point forward, there is the possibility of a person or group having knowledge of the flaw and not releasing it.
It's entirely possible that there is a blackhat group or groups, which we will probably never discover, that is harboring hundreds or thousands of unreleased vulnerabilites. Such a group would have immense power, the ability to disrupt the information systems of nearly every company on the planet, on a whim, or when hired to do so.
Open source, with it's ease of finding flaws, reduces this "true window" of exposure.
It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that all security threats are script kiddies running tools against well known vulernabilities, since the majority of the attacks reported are of that nature, but that doesn't mean that the threat of a true blackhat group doesn't exist, and couldn't be devestating.
I have two way satellite, Starband. The upstream is about the same speed as a 56K modem, the downstream is pretty fast (80-100kilobytes/sec). Latency is minimum 600ms.
It's great for downloading large files, and chatting on IRC, and web browsing isn't too bad.
It really sucks at certain things, like telnet or ssh, it's tedious to use those over a satellite link.
It all depends on what you need it for, but satellites in their current high earth orbits are not for every application.
These guys are pretty good for buying small uranium ore samples to test geiger counters with. They also stock uranium doped glass marbles that really light up under black light. Pretty cool radioactive toys.
or its first practical application -- mammoth wind turbine towers
The first impractical application was for shoes that could have doors slammed on them and not injure the wearer.
I guess you meant Au, tsk tsk, and we trust you to build perodic tables. :)
Sorry, I screwed that up, the thermal effects follow the inverse square law, the area scales linearly with yield, the blast effects follow the inverse cube law, the volume scales linearly with yield. (More or less).
Even then, it's not what you would think. The thermal effects scale almost linearly with yield, but the blast effects follow the inverse square law.
A 100 MT bomb is only about three times more powerful than a 10 MT bomb as far as blast effects go.
For this reason, all the larger bombs were abandoned in favor of smaller and more managable ones. They also use MIRV clustering now. Just image a beo...
nevermind.
It would depend on the mass and trajectory. Even an 1/2 earth sized object could pass through the atmosphere and not strike, if it was not coming directly at us. Of course that would mess up our orbit if it was that large, and we might capture it if it were going slowly enough.
We'd still be fucked.
As an addendum, the hard disks must be screwed in if you put them in the slide out trays. Of course it's easy to screw them down since you can remove the tray. You could in theory not use screws for the hard disk if you put them in the externally accessible 3.5inch bays, but I don't think it's a good idea to install a hard disk without screws.