Good call, DangerTenor -- as I was noticing in my other post the facts reported about Outlook are, in many places, simply wrong. It calls into question the validity of the entire review.
Did someone just slap this together with the hopes of scoring a frontpage Slashdot article?
heh, I went back to reading and found more stuff that wasn't kosher. Read on if you care about accuracy.:)
Composing messages: Reply, reply to all and inline forward are supported, but attached forward seem to be missing as well as forward as-is.
While looking at your Inbox, Tools | Options | first tab is Preferences | E-mail Options.
Area called `On Replies and Forwards`. Dropdown list called `When forwarding a message`. Options are:
Attach original message
Include original message (inline)
Include and indent original message
Prefix each line of original message, and it lets you pick the prefix if you want.
For the message composing Microsoft Word is used and all its features, such as spell checking, can thus be used. Most of the features, especially related to fonts and graphics, are naturally most useful when writing HTML mail.
Strike out `is used` and write in `can be used` -- I routinely disable Word as my email editor because I don't want everything Word can to do happen to my email (such as substituting graphical smileys for the universal:) and similar).
The fonts and formatting all work splendidly in Rich Text mode, which is 200% less suck-tastic than HTML mail.
Blind carbon copy (BCC) does not seem to be supported at all. By clicking the "Options" button you can set a number of options for the message, however, including signing or encrypting. text.
While composing an email - View | BCC Field
Damn, I know that's hard to find.
Unfortunately for the reviewer, I find Outlook remarkably easy to use, and always have. The reviewer's inability to find these simple, basic pre-installed options in Outlook calls into question the thoroughness of the review of any product listed. I'm just catching these because I happen to use Outlook fairly often.
FYI, Outlook is reviewed in the article, you just have to read the article to find this out. Stop going for front page first post karma whoring, start reading the articles, and perhaps you can contribute something of value.
For example:
As part of the stat breakdown in the boxed chart in the review (did you read the article? Please read the article..), Outlook is flagged as not having full index searching.
To wit, `full index searching` has a superscript and is described thusly:
2. Full index search refers to all messages, including body text, being indexed and searchable without reading everything from storage.
This is true but only half accurate -- in an Exchange environment it is completely possible to enable full text indexing of everything on the Exchange server. It just isn't usable on your home system as a standalone internet email client.
Even if you could use full text indexing at home, in a POP3/IMAP environment... why would you? The idea of having such an index is to reduce the burden of searches by having an index where you can get faster results -- keep the servers from dying if 3,000 people all opt to search for "Re:" throughout the whole server. At home, what's the benefit? To create a full text index you're going to create a second searchable database on your PC. Your email storage files (psts or whatnot) are *already* a database that exists for this purpose. You'd have to trade storage space to shave an extra 0.3ms off your search times. It doesn't make good sense.
Assuming you do IMAP and keep most of your data on the server the argument becomes, `I don't want to have to read/download everything to find a single message`. The counter argument is simply, `Where do you think you're gonna keep your full text index? On your ISP's system?`
Anyway, full text index searching isn't something I see as viable for a home platform -- and if you're talking about in a business or enterprise setting, Outlook does support it - through Exchange Server.
All Obje devices or services, called components, implement and make use of one or more of the meta-interfaces. Together, the Obje meta-interfaces allow components to extend one another to accept new data transfer protocols, media formats, CODECs, content types, discovery protocols, physical network transports, and user interfaces. An Obje component, or client application written against the framework, automatically acquires the above dimensions of extensibility, allowing it to interoperate with new peers on the network without rewriting and without explicit software updates.
To wit:
data transfer protocols: Are you on TCP/IP, or UDP, or Appletalk, or what? Let me adapt.
media formats: What type of streaming content is that, exactly? Let me adapt.
CODECs: You're using Divx/MPEG-4? I don't have it, send it to me as part of the framework package.
content types: I can't support that MIME type. Teach me, via the framework, how to handle it.
discovery protocols: I didn't come with the latest wireless discovery standard; hello, access-point that's Obje enabled, please teach me how to access you... in the meantime, I'll talk to you using my own special discovery protocol.
and etc.
All of these things can already be done and are being done and have been done and were done years ago; Obje seems like a unification of all those efforts, moving towards a central platform-independant standard for how devices learn to do new tricks. Much as when you're surfing the net now and your browser auto-learns how to play new types of Media because a website can push you the players, except extended to higher (and lower) order functions as well, because PARC seems to be betting on awesomely small future computers that will have to be able to handle a very wide range of user functions.
... what article were you reading? The article doesn't talk at *all* about letting devices communicate independantly and learn to talk to each other.
It provides a `standard` that `allows` such communications to, in theory, take place. It does it by removing some of the intelligence apps currently have to have in order to talk, so long as you adhere to the standard. But it's not like they're inventing new protocols here.
If TCP/IP is a vast highway to transfer information, Obje is a new kind of tire.
The Obje platform works with all standards, including those that have not yet been defined. It requires no central coordination, pre-configuring, or special set-up, and can be easily used by people with no technical expertise.
It provides users a way to combine devices to build simple solutions for hundreds of problems - easily assembling their particular applications from available devices and services. It offers manufacturers a simple, fast, and timely solution to the increasing requirement to connect products.
The Obje platform works with devices of all kinds - including cell phones, computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), printers, set-top boxes, bar-code scanners, video displays, and others - from any manufacturer.
It works with everything, everywhere - because rather than being some kind of new l33t tech, or even a new technical standard, it's a self-described "meta standard".
In that respect, it reminds me a lot of Microsoft's DNA (Distributed Network Architecture), which I'm not sure anyone remembers. I only do because I built the Mid-Atlantic DNA labs, having worked for one of their Premiere Partners. Basically DNA wasn't new tech of any kind so much as a way of thinking and realignment of existing technologies. Instead of coming up with something really neat and whizbang to sell, Microsoft instead tried selling the process of how to think about how to get work done. Instead of creating apps that are live in the net, say, add a layer of firewalling and some abstraction between the user and the app itself, centralize all of your data in searchable SQL databases, and do other really common stuff!
And they charged people for it, too.:) Obje reminds me of this - standards about standards about actual work.
This "will be the first time mammals of any kind have lived in partial gravity for an extended period."
Skylab? Mir? The International Space Station? People coming back from hundred-day tours in space, their muscles weak from Low-G muscle atrophy, having to undergo extended rehabilitation and physical therapy to rebuild muscle mass after coming earthside?
Why is it so confusing to imagine that (a) People do like to do things out of the "kindness" of their collective hearts, and (b) security is not always "secured" by either contracts or money?
I'd like to see some statistics on how many people attempt to invade/evade the physical security checks at Netsol's NOC that require and necessitate facilties on that level. The same goes for most any datacenter - your physical security is awesome, but why?
Aren't most attacks against servers launched over that intarweb thing?
I can't recall the last time someone tried to suicide bomb a root server.:)
Back in the day, they say the Internet was built to withstand a nuclear assault.
DARPA was running a research project to build a networking system capable of intelligent self re-routing in the case of points of failure, so that a single network outage couldn't prevent traffic from flowing through. The extended concept for ARPANet was that if a major segment of the network vanished it might still be possible for data to be routed, hence the `it can get nuked and still survive` quotes people toss around.
Most unfortunately the internet itself is not always as robust; if certain routers are knocked out, large segments of the networks behind them stay unreachable for long periods of time, mainly because of serious network mismanagement on the part of the people who really ought to know better.
One can also never understimate the power and prevalence of Backhoe Fade.
Digex, along with other major hosting and co-lo facilities, has had these kinds of systems in place for their datacenters for many a year. And yeah, most of them look like very non-descript office buildings - a great many I've seen are in warehouse-style industrial complexes, far off the beaten path of regular office space and retail properties.
You have to wonder if they're a little overboard, though; the military doesn't typically have checks that secure to get into specific rooms - not even TS/SCI environments. Though, to be fair, the military certainly has an edge on physicalsecurity.
I guess if you're really concerned about your data being physically secure, you could always co-lo out at Sealand, too.
The newsflash I heard over the radio at lunch quoted someone (didn't catch a name) as saying that, at present, Spirit wasn't even relaying telemetry data -- so for the time being they've no way to even tell what happened, let alone how to fix it.
I hope that they track it down and can fix it easily; Spirit was one of the coolest things going in recent weeks, and was providing a welcome break from all the election primary coverage.
I also really hope we don't degenerate into a `hah, you laughed at Beagle, now it's your turn` style flamewar. Hell, I'll actually settle for one or the other.:)
Step 3 is optional because it assumes cluefulness on the part of political leadership, which I wouldn't want to assume. But there are some tech-savvy members of Congress (surely!) who might understand the honeypot concept.
I worked down in the Pentagon for two and a half years. I thought I had a really good grip on political machinations, having read a lot of polysci theory and having always been marginally decent at manipulating people. When I got down to Arlington I realized that the political power players are like sharks in a vast tank full of guppies.
I couldn't even believe the level of shit that people were capable of doing, willing to do, and doing every day to advance their careers and positions. A clever honeypot trick like this wouldn't be a wondrous masterstroke to top off someone's career - it'd be a move executed before they finished breakfast!
Sometimes I'm really upset by our divisive and angry Two Party System; it seems like nothing ever gets done. Other times I am very, very grateful that the government is not one gigantic unified son of a bitch, because then all those manipulative, controlling and totally evil tendencies would be aimed squarely at me.
Having clearly marked opponents gives them something to aim for and exert their energy upon.
Skip from this incident of Republicans spying back to the years during the Clinton White House, wherein the FBI was found to have pulled confidential files on tons of prominent Republicans and provided that information (quite illegally).
Quick summary for people who don't remember 1998: "[There was a] class action suit on behalf of the more than 900 Bush and Reagan appointees and possibly others whose FBI files were unlawfully obtained by the Clinton White House. Louis Freeh, Director of the FBI, has admitted that there was an "egregious violation of privacy without justification."
It goes around, it comes around, Watergate wasn't the first time, and this isn't the last time.
The nature of what's happened is bad, but it also makes sense. Being in Hong Kong, CD-WOW doesn't strictly have to play by the UK's rules and can, in theory, charge whatever they want for the media they are selling. It's the basis of free enterprise, which Hong Kong is sometimes good about. (And to the consternation of the MPAA, sometimes all too good about.)
So, CD-WOW could, in theory, ignore BPI. BPI, in turn, can make life very very difficult for them through the use of repeated lawsuits (which may fail, but will cost money to defend against), through harassment of people buying their services, and through the use of the same tactics the RIAA employs here against people who don't obtain music how they want you to obtain it.
It's difficult to fight a legal battle, even one you can win, against an opponent who has the resources of the government to draw on. CD-WOW is probably just protecting their interests by rolling with the punches. Hopefully it'll hurt their sales less than fighting with BPI would hurt their bottom line.
The Associated Press mentions one catch in particular: 'The researchers still are working on building a helium-3 reactor that would produce more energy than it takes in.'
That, and the fact that Amazon doesn't offer Super Saver Shipping on Helium-3. It'll be fun to see if they can come up with a way to utilize that power and get it here without wasting an equilvalent amount of power for the process itself. Negative efficiency in excess of -100% of your input is baaad.
I start to wonder about the sheer cost of pursing this type of legal tactic. It cannot be cheap to field the army of legal weasels that the RIAA keeps throwing at filesharers. The court-order-required process of tracking an IP down to a given user is neither quick nor easy, especially with certain major ISPs refusing to hand out names.
If you stack the cost of the lawsuits on one side, and the average settlement win from people scared out of their wits on the other... is there a profit being made here?
I'm betting the answer is 'no'. And all that means is the Recording Industry is attempting to achieve compliance through fear. All authority derives from force, as the old saying goes... if they can wield enough phantom, borrowed force through the courts, they can give the appearance of having the authority to terrorize the little people who feel the legal system will not deal fairly with them.
I wonder if that's worth the money they're spending.
heh. This is what happens when people start discussing private topics tangentally related to the story at hand.:)
As for whether or not it's a SlashVert, let's consider the review itself...
[T]he books that make up this "library," apparently, are not the books used in [Cisco's]courses.
[W]hat you have in your hands is a reverse-engineered study guide: a study guide for an exam that is based on a course that does not use said book.
[D]on't think that... you are dealing with a set of information that is as close as possible to the set of information from which the test was drawn.
Studying these books will prepare you for the CCNA in the same way that reading the Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z will prepare you to identify the capital of Nairobi. (best quote, btw)
[T]he difference between the material presented and the material actually making up the test is excessive.
The ICND guide, especially, is so full of typos that it is often embarrassing to read.
[T]he mistakes in the ICND book pale in comparison to those in the CD test engines.
I don't know if I'd consider that a glowing recommendation, or even a SlashVert. Maybe the three-of-five stars was given because you can use the handy books to prop up failing table legs, or as long-lasting coasters.:)
This is the same thing that happens with most testing in secondary grades. The students memorize just enough of the material to pass the test.
Bingo - that's it, the problem, the head of the nail that we're hitting (as it were).
The reason that certifications have lost so much ground in the last five to ten and the reason that nobody respects MCSEs any longer is because of the nature of the testing. When certification exams are a matter of cramming your mind full of administrivia and memorizing cheat-sheets that teach the quick powers-of-two needed to compute a subnet mask, it's no wonder that the average level of the passing applicant falls. Facts and Figures can be memorized with some ease.
MCSE exams fell prey to an entire cottage industry that exists to help people pass them. Think of every radio ad you've ever heard promising that wealth, riches, and beautiful women can all be yours if you just step into the magical and happy world of Information Technology! The industry's job is to ram you through a bootcamp training session and then have you dump that information back out on a certification exam, automagically, while your brain is still raw and bleeding. How much you retain isn't important to them at all; they try to drill into you the erroneous concept that Certification == Job... and then get you to the certification, leaving you to figure out the last part on your own.
The brain dump sites online, the exam cram book writers, and the people promising instant results can actually deliver: it is totally possible to ace a certification by studying old tests, reading old questions, and overloading for the purpose of passing your exam.
And, just like back in college, you will not remember most of this information after the fact.:) Cram studying does not lead to long term information retention. How much Calculus do you recall, after years of not actually using it?
The only way to really prove yourself is to start small, to learn what you can, and to etch it into your mind through repetition and hands-on experience.
Do what you have to to get your certification. Do not expect to land an 80k/yr job off of it alone -- it won't work. (God help you if it does, you'll learn what being fired feels like very shortly thereafter.) Expect to land a starter job, and use that to make an impression on your bosses; learn fast, learn often, be a good employee.
The recommendations of people you've worked for and with will serve you better in the long run than your certification will. It's time to rely on your qualities, rather than the qualities the paper says you have.
I have a previous comment up above that basically labels certifications as a foot in the door, not as a means to an end (i.e., they don't guarantee employment) and I stand by that assertation.
That said, if you want your resume to actually be looked at for a networking position, having the CCNA is not a mark against you. That foot in the door can be a huge, huge benefit - it's your primary means of self-marketing until you either..
1) Learn to write a really effective resume, or 2) Have sufficient experience to get hired on that basis instead.
The CCNA is the key that opens the door to certain kinds of networking interviews. If you're thinking about going for it, consider what kinds of jobs it'll open you up for: Networking Jobs. An awful lot of kids I went to school with years back swore up and down they wanted to be network engineers when what they really wanted to be were sysadmins; the fields are different, the credentials and criteria are different, and the certs you need to support them are different.
The CCNA is what you'll want if you enjoy swimming in Cisco equipment, love configuring VPNs, enjoy troubleshooting RADIUS logging on your AAA box, and suchlike. If those aren't your hobbies, re-evaluate what it is you're really going for.:)
One of the more amusing job hunting experiences I ever had revolved around this concept.
I had already passed their resume' screening and phone interview process and was now down to the face-to-face (also known as the `Eyes, Fingers and Toes` check) and an on-site technical interview. After a brief discussion of my qualifications and experiences, one of their lead engineers was called over.
Him: Okay, let's begin. Define `TCP/IP`. Me:... are you serious? Him: It's just a standard question. Me:... did you see that I have an MCSE and have been a network engineer for four years now? Him: The MCSE is why I'm asking.
I kid you not. At the time I was sincerely insulted, but having spent a career surrounded by engineers who didn't know their asses from their elbows, I can see why he held that belief. The threat of the Paper MCSE is quite real -- and now, unfortunately, Cisco's certifications are being proven to have the same flaws.
Certifications in the tech world are just like degrees, people -- they're paper. They're that foot in the door. They're a proof that you can read a book and pass a standardized test. They don't guarantee employment. They may get you the interview, just don't expect more from them.
Slashdot Mirror
Good call, DangerTenor -- as I was noticing in my other post the facts reported about Outlook are, in many places, simply wrong. It calls into question the validity of the entire review.
Did someone just slap this together with the hopes of scoring a frontpage Slashdot article?
While looking at your Inbox,
Tools | Options | first tab is Preferences | E-mail Options.
Area called `On Replies and Forwards`. Dropdown list called `When forwarding a message`. Options are:
Strike out `is used` and write in `can be used` -- I routinely disable Word as my email editor because I don't want everything Word can to do happen to my email (such as substituting graphical smileys for the universal
The fonts and formatting all work splendidly in Rich Text mode, which is 200% less suck-tastic than HTML mail.
While composing an email -
View | BCC Field
Damn, I know that's hard to find.
Unfortunately for the reviewer, I find Outlook remarkably easy to use, and always have. The reviewer's inability to find these simple, basic pre-installed options in Outlook calls into question the thoroughness of the review of any product listed. I'm just catching these because I happen to use Outlook fairly often.
For example:
As part of the stat breakdown in the boxed chart in the review (did you read the article? Please read the article..), Outlook is flagged as not having full index searching.
To wit, `full index searching` has a superscript and is described thusly:
This is true but only half accurate -- in an Exchange environment it is completely possible to enable full text indexing of everything on the Exchange server. It just isn't usable on your home system as a standalone internet email client.
Even if you could use full text indexing at home, in a POP3/IMAP environment
Assuming you do IMAP and keep most of your data on the server the argument becomes, `I don't want to have to read/download everything to find a single message`. The counter argument is simply, `Where do you think you're gonna keep your full text index? On your ISP's system?`
Anyway, full text index searching isn't something I see as viable for a home platform -- and if you're talking about in a business or enterprise setting, Outlook does support it - through Exchange Server.
From the Obje FAQ:
... in the meantime, I'll talk to you using my own special discovery protocol.
All Obje devices or services, called components, implement and make use of one or more of the meta-interfaces. Together, the Obje meta-interfaces allow components to extend one another to accept new data transfer protocols, media formats, CODECs, content types, discovery protocols, physical network transports, and user interfaces. An Obje component, or client application written against the framework, automatically acquires the above dimensions of extensibility, allowing it to interoperate with new peers on the network without rewriting and without explicit software updates.
To wit:
data transfer protocols: Are you on TCP/IP, or UDP, or Appletalk, or what? Let me adapt.
media formats: What type of streaming content is that, exactly? Let me adapt.
CODECs: You're using Divx/MPEG-4? I don't have it, send it to me as part of the framework package.
content types: I can't support that MIME type. Teach me, via the framework, how to handle it.
discovery protocols: I didn't come with the latest wireless discovery standard; hello, access-point that's Obje enabled, please teach me how to access you
and etc.
All of these things can already be done and are being done and have been done and were done years ago; Obje seems like a unification of all those efforts, moving towards a central platform-independant standard for how devices learn to do new tricks. Much as when you're surfing the net now and your browser auto-learns how to play new types of Media because a website can push you the players, except extended to higher (and lower) order functions as well, because PARC seems to be betting on awesomely small future computers that will have to be able to handle a very wide range of user functions.
... what article were you reading? The article doesn't talk at *all* about letting devices communicate independantly and learn to talk to each other.
It provides a `standard` that `allows` such communications to, in theory, take place. It does it by removing some of the intelligence apps currently have to have in order to talk, so long as you adhere to the standard. But it's not like they're inventing new protocols here.
If TCP/IP is a vast highway to transfer information, Obje is a new kind of tire.
From the article:
:) Obje reminds me of this - standards about standards about actual work.
The Obje platform works with all standards, including those that have not yet been defined. It requires no central coordination, pre-configuring, or special set-up, and can be easily used by people with no technical expertise.
It provides users a way to combine devices to build simple solutions for hundreds of problems - easily assembling their particular applications from available devices and services. It offers manufacturers a simple, fast, and timely solution to the increasing requirement to connect products.
The Obje platform works with devices of all kinds - including cell phones, computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), printers, set-top boxes, bar-code scanners, video displays, and others - from any manufacturer.
It works with everything, everywhere - because rather than being some kind of new l33t tech, or even a new technical standard, it's a self-described "meta standard".
In that respect, it reminds me a lot of Microsoft's DNA (Distributed Network Architecture), which I'm not sure anyone remembers. I only do because I built the Mid-Atlantic DNA labs, having worked for one of their Premiere Partners. Basically DNA wasn't new tech of any kind so much as a way of thinking and realignment of existing technologies. Instead of coming up with something really neat and whizbang to sell, Microsoft instead tried selling the process of how to think about how to get work done. Instead of creating apps that are live in the net, say, add a layer of firewalling and some abstraction between the user and the app itself, centralize all of your data in searchable SQL databases, and do other really common stuff!
And they charged people for it, too.
because the real link is here. The one supplied in the story 404'd on me.
Thanks, Google!
This "will be the first time mammals of any kind have lived in partial gravity for an extended period."
Skylab? Mir? The International Space Station? People coming back from hundred-day tours in space, their muscles weak from Low-G muscle atrophy, having to undergo extended rehabilitation and physical therapy to rebuild muscle mass after coming earthside?
Did I imagine all that?
now you've done it .. the terrorist will infiltrate the facility and map the goat everywhere!
Nah. Remember the old adage: Security through obscurity, isn't.
Why is it so confusing to imagine that (a) People do like to do things out of the "kindness" of their collective hearts, and (b) security is not always "secured" by either contracts or money?
Because unlike software, bandwidth is never free.
I'd like to see some statistics on how many people attempt to invade/evade the physical security checks at Netsol's NOC that require and necessitate facilties on that level. The same goes for most any datacenter - your physical security is awesome, but why?
:)
Aren't most attacks against servers launched over that intarweb thing?
I can't recall the last time someone tried to suicide bomb a root server.
Back in the day, they say the Internet was built to withstand a nuclear assault.
DARPA was running a research project to build a networking system capable of intelligent self re-routing in the case of points of failure, so that a single network outage couldn't prevent traffic from flowing through. The extended concept for ARPANet was that if a major segment of the network vanished it might still be possible for data to be routed, hence the `it can get nuked and still survive` quotes people toss around.
Most unfortunately the internet itself is not always as robust; if certain routers are knocked out, large segments of the networks behind them stay unreachable for long periods of time, mainly because of serious network mismanagement on the part of the people who really ought to know better.
One can also never understimate the power and prevalence of Backhoe Fade.
Digex, along with other major hosting and co-lo facilities, has had these kinds of systems in place for their datacenters for many a year. And yeah, most of them look like very non-descript office buildings - a great many I've seen are in warehouse-style industrial complexes, far off the beaten path of regular office space and retail properties.
You have to wonder if they're a little overboard, though; the military doesn't typically have checks that secure to get into specific rooms - not even TS/SCI environments. Though, to be fair, the military certainly has an edge on physical security.
I guess if you're really concerned about your data being physically secure, you could always co-lo out at Sealand, too.
The newsflash I heard over the radio at lunch quoted someone (didn't catch a name) as saying that, at present, Spirit wasn't even relaying telemetry data -- so for the time being they've no way to even tell what happened, let alone how to fix it.
:)
I hope that they track it down and can fix it easily; Spirit was one of the coolest things going in recent weeks, and was providing a welcome break from all the election primary coverage.
I also really hope we don't degenerate into a `hah, you laughed at Beagle, now it's your turn` style flamewar. Hell, I'll actually settle for one or the other.
Maybe a whole bunch more illegal/unethical crap will be discovered that makes this current situation comparable. But right now, it isn't.
;)
Aren't election years beautiful?
Step 3 is optional because it assumes cluefulness on the part of political leadership, which I wouldn't want to assume. But there are some tech-savvy members of Congress (surely!) who might understand the honeypot concept.
I worked down in the Pentagon for two and a half years. I thought I had a really good grip on political machinations, having read a lot of polysci theory and having always been marginally decent at manipulating people. When I got down to Arlington I realized that the political power players are like sharks in a vast tank full of guppies.
I couldn't even believe the level of shit that people were capable of doing, willing to do, and doing every day to advance their careers and positions. A clever honeypot trick like this wouldn't be a wondrous masterstroke to top off someone's career - it'd be a move executed before they finished breakfast!
Sometimes I'm really upset by our divisive and angry Two Party System; it seems like nothing ever gets done. Other times I am very, very grateful that the government is not one gigantic unified son of a bitch, because then all those manipulative, controlling and totally evil tendencies would be aimed squarely at me.
Having clearly marked opponents gives them something to aim for and exert their energy upon.
In DC, this is called `Business As Usual`.
Skip from this incident of Republicans spying back to the years during the Clinton White House, wherein the FBI was found to have pulled confidential files on tons of prominent Republicans and provided that information (quite illegally).
Quick link to info on Filegate
Quick summary for people who don't remember 1998: "[There was a] class action suit on behalf of the more than 900 Bush and Reagan appointees and possibly others whose FBI files were unlawfully obtained by the Clinton White House. Louis Freeh, Director of the FBI, has admitted that there was an "egregious violation of privacy without justification."
It goes around, it comes around, Watergate wasn't the first time, and this isn't the last time.
Politics.
feh.
The nature of what's happened is bad, but it also makes sense. Being in Hong Kong, CD-WOW doesn't strictly have to play by the UK's rules and can, in theory, charge whatever they want for the media they are selling. It's the basis of free enterprise, which Hong Kong is sometimes good about. (And to the consternation of the MPAA, sometimes all too good about.)
So, CD-WOW could, in theory, ignore BPI. BPI, in turn, can make life very very difficult for them through the use of repeated lawsuits (which may fail, but will cost money to defend against), through harassment of people buying their services, and through the use of the same tactics the RIAA employs here against people who don't obtain music how they want you to obtain it.
It's difficult to fight a legal battle, even one you can win, against an opponent who has the resources of the government to draw on. CD-WOW is probably just protecting their interests by rolling with the punches. Hopefully it'll hurt their sales less than fighting with BPI would hurt their bottom line.
The Associated Press mentions one catch in particular: 'The researchers still are working on building a helium-3 reactor that would produce more energy than it takes in.'
That, and the fact that Amazon doesn't offer Super Saver Shipping on Helium-3. It'll be fun to see if they can come up with a way to utilize that power and get it here without wasting an equilvalent amount of power for the process itself. Negative efficiency in excess of -100% of your input is baaad.
covering everything from strange one-handed KBs
:)
There used to be an old joke about this; Build a one-handed keyboard and the world will beat a path to your door.
The joke was interchangeable with `left handed mouse for right handed people`.
And as long as we're in innuendo land, it's appropriate to add that if you build it, they will come.
I start to wonder about the sheer cost of pursing this type of legal tactic. It cannot be cheap to field the army of legal weasels that the RIAA keeps throwing at filesharers. The court-order-required process of tracking an IP down to a given user is neither quick nor easy, especially with certain major ISPs refusing to hand out names.
... if they can wield enough phantom, borrowed force through the courts, they can give the appearance of having the authority to terrorize the little people who feel the legal system will not deal fairly with them.
If you stack the cost of the lawsuits on one side, and the average settlement win from people scared out of their wits on the other... is there a profit being made here?
I'm betting the answer is 'no'. And all that means is the Recording Industry is attempting to achieve compliance through fear. All authority derives from force, as the old saying goes
I wonder if that's worth the money they're spending.
As for whether or not it's a SlashVert, let's consider the review itself...
I don't know if I'd consider that a glowing recommendation, or even a SlashVert. Maybe the three-of-five stars was given because you can use the handy books to prop up failing table legs, or as long-lasting coasters.
This is the same thing that happens with most testing in secondary grades. The students memorize just enough of the material to pass the test.
... and then get you to the certification, leaving you to figure out the last part on your own.
:) Cram studying does not lead to long term information retention. How much Calculus do you recall, after years of not actually using it?
Bingo - that's it, the problem, the head of the nail that we're hitting (as it were).
The reason that certifications have lost so much ground in the last five to ten and the reason that nobody respects MCSEs any longer is because of the nature of the testing. When certification exams are a matter of cramming your mind full of administrivia and memorizing cheat-sheets that teach the quick powers-of-two needed to compute a subnet mask, it's no wonder that the average level of the passing applicant falls. Facts and Figures can be memorized with some ease.
MCSE exams fell prey to an entire cottage industry that exists to help people pass them. Think of every radio ad you've ever heard promising that wealth, riches, and beautiful women can all be yours if you just step into the magical and happy world of Information Technology! The industry's job is to ram you through a bootcamp training session and then have you dump that information back out on a certification exam, automagically, while your brain is still raw and bleeding. How much you retain isn't important to them at all; they try to drill into you the erroneous concept that Certification == Job
The brain dump sites online, the exam cram book writers, and the people promising instant results can actually deliver: it is totally possible to ace a certification by studying old tests, reading old questions, and overloading for the purpose of passing your exam.
And, just like back in college, you will not remember most of this information after the fact.
The only way to really prove yourself is to start small, to learn what you can, and to etch it into your mind through repetition and hands-on experience.
Do what you have to to get your certification. Do not expect to land an 80k/yr job off of it alone -- it won't work. (God help you if it does, you'll learn what being fired feels like very shortly thereafter.) Expect to land a starter job, and use that to make an impression on your bosses; learn fast, learn often, be a good employee.
The recommendations of people you've worked for and with will serve you better in the long run than your certification will. It's time to rely on your qualities, rather than the qualities the paper says you have.
I have a previous comment up above that basically labels certifications as a foot in the door, not as a means to an end (i.e., they don't guarantee employment) and I stand by that assertation.
:)
That said, if you want your resume to actually be looked at for a networking position, having the CCNA is not a mark against you. That foot in the door can be a huge, huge benefit - it's your primary means of self-marketing until you either..
1) Learn to write a really effective resume, or
2) Have sufficient experience to get hired on that basis instead.
The CCNA is the key that opens the door to certain kinds of networking interviews. If you're thinking about going for it, consider what kinds of jobs it'll open you up for: Networking Jobs. An awful lot of kids I went to school with years back swore up and down they wanted to be network engineers when what they really wanted to be were sysadmins; the fields are different, the credentials and criteria are different, and the certs you need to support them are different.
The CCNA is what you'll want if you enjoy swimming in Cisco equipment, love configuring VPNs, enjoy troubleshooting RADIUS logging on your AAA box, and suchlike. If those aren't your hobbies, re-evaluate what it is you're really going for.
One of the more amusing job hunting experiences I ever had revolved around this concept.
... are you serious? ... did you see that I have an MCSE and have been a network engineer for four years now?
I had already passed their resume' screening and phone interview process and was now down to the face-to-face (also known as the `Eyes, Fingers and Toes` check) and an on-site technical interview. After a brief discussion of my qualifications and experiences, one of their lead engineers was called over.
Him: Okay, let's begin. Define `TCP/IP`.
Me:
Him: It's just a standard question.
Me:
Him: The MCSE is why I'm asking.
I kid you not. At the time I was sincerely insulted, but having spent a career surrounded by engineers who didn't know their asses from their elbows, I can see why he held that belief. The threat of the Paper MCSE is quite real -- and now, unfortunately, Cisco's certifications are being proven to have the same flaws.
Certifications in the tech world are just like degrees, people -- they're paper. They're that foot in the door. They're a proof that you can read a book and pass a standardized test. They don't guarantee employment. They may get you the interview, just don't expect more from them.