PPPoE is bad because unless you have a router with a PPPoE client in firmware, PPPoE (Point to Point Protocol over Ethernet) requires you to run a client side piece of software to connect and authenticate to your DSL provider. It turns your always-on DSL connection into a faster but still-annoying dial-up experience. Plus, it's just one more piece of crap application you have to run in the background.
And getting a router with a PPPoE client in firmware isn't a total solution, since in my experience SWBell drops my connection every day or so and I have to go into my router's config page and reconnect manually.
I've had residential ADSL through SWBell (part of SBC) since March, and I've always had to deal with their PPPoE crap. This isn't anything new to a lot of customers in Southwestern Bell's coverage area.
Roadrunner is looking more and more attractive. They're still DHCP...
I do desktop and network support for a moderate-sized (~300 employees) Internet company. We have an on-call phone that rotates between the four desktop support techs every week. When it is your turn to carry the phone, you carry the phone. When someone calls during the weekend, the call goes to that phone.We are all salaried-exempt, so no overtime, no bonus, no extra payment. When it's your turn to be on call, your weekend is totally fucked, because all you do for two straight days is function as a message center and secretary.
We all carry pagers, as well. Even when we don't have the phone, we're accountable 24 hours a day.
Is this worth is for $35k/yr? No. Do I plan to be here very much longer? No.
Until recently, the old CGA "Rendezvous" was the only "ancient" PC game I owned that I hadn't beaten. Most of the things in the game are red herrings, but it's a fascinating, fascinating game--a thousand times better than the partial-birth-abortion-of-a-game produced in later years by Sierra.
The The game can be located at The Home of the Underdogs . I'm also aware of an Apple ][ version, but I couldn't say where to find it.
At $INTERNET_STARTUP_COMPANY, the on-call person does not get any extra compensation. We have a cell phone (a Nextel-powered Motorola i1000, actually) that each of us carries for one week.
Everyone in my department is salaried-exempt, and it was explained to us by my boss that since we are salaried, we are being paid a set amount of money for our expertise and services, and we need to buckle down and be more team-oriented instead of complaining about wanting more money.
Meanwhile, the Marketing department gets free, company-provided breakfast from a different catering company every day. It's hard to be team-oriented when people who do nothing but complain all day get gourmet croissants and exotic fruit (that was Monday), but when that freaking Nextel goes off at 2:30 in the morning because some researchers in Germany can't VPN into the network, I get nothing except tired as hell. Sigh...
If you're interested in the most massive digitization project in the history of the world, check out Questia. Questia is positioning themselves to offer access to a tremendous amount of information, starting early 2001. From the web page:
"Questia is building the first online service to provide unlimited access to the full text of hundreds of thousands of books, journals and periodicals, as well as tools to easily use this information."
The web page also says they will start with 50,000 of "the most valued volumes in the liberal arts from the 20th and 21st centuries" and then build to 250,000 titles over the next couple of years. Granted, it's not the LoC, but it's a step in the right direction.
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And getting a router with a PPPoE client in firmware isn't a total solution, since in my experience SWBell drops my connection every day or so and I have to go into my router's config page and reconnect manually.
Roadrunner is looking more and more attractive. They're still DHCP...
All the tech support war stories are great, but the granddaddy of tech support story repositories can be found here.
My vote for "First Luser Sent to the Home" is George.
I won't reproduce it here, but I will link to it. It can be found here, in the appendix of the Jargon File.
If ever a treatise was written about Code as Art, this is it.
This. This is why tech support sucks.
I do desktop and network support for a moderate-sized (~300 employees) Internet company. We have an on-call phone that rotates between the four desktop support techs every week. When it is your turn to carry the phone, you carry the phone. When someone calls during the weekend, the call goes to that phone.We are all salaried-exempt, so no overtime, no bonus, no extra payment. When it's your turn to be on call, your weekend is totally fucked, because all you do for two straight days is function as a message center and secretary.
We all carry pagers, as well. Even when we don't have the phone, we're accountable 24 hours a day.
Is this worth is for $35k/yr? No. Do I plan to be here very much longer? No.
The The game can be located at The Home of the Underdogs . I'm also aware of an Apple ][ version, but I couldn't say where to find it.
Also, for a MASSIVE collection of true tech tales from the trenches, try Computer Stupidities.
At $INTERNET_STARTUP_COMPANY, the on-call person does not get any extra compensation. We have a cell phone (a Nextel-powered Motorola i1000, actually) that each of us carries for one week. Everyone in my department is salaried-exempt, and it was explained to us by my boss that since we are salaried, we are being paid a set amount of money for our expertise and services, and we need to buckle down and be more team-oriented instead of complaining about wanting more money. Meanwhile, the Marketing department gets free, company-provided breakfast from a different catering company every day. It's hard to be team-oriented when people who do nothing but complain all day get gourmet croissants and exotic fruit (that was Monday), but when that freaking Nextel goes off at 2:30 in the morning because some researchers in Germany can't VPN into the network, I get nothing except tired as hell. Sigh...
If you're interested in the most massive digitization project in the history of the world, check out Questia. Questia is positioning themselves to offer access to a tremendous amount of information, starting early 2001. From the web page: "Questia is building the first online service to provide unlimited access to the full text of hundreds of thousands of books, journals and periodicals, as well as tools to easily use this information." The web page also says they will start with 50,000 of "the most valued volumes in the liberal arts from the 20th and 21st centuries" and then build to 250,000 titles over the next couple of years. Granted, it's not the LoC, but it's a step in the right direction.