Like spam and phishing, web advertising is an arms race, with the anti-ad software always having to up the ante against the ads. If Firefox got directly into this arms race, they'd lose their shirt, both in continual updates and user support when legitimate stuff gets blocked. Better to leave that to the plugin writers.
It wouldn't have cost them a dime to add a model to the Mac Pro lineup that uses the new Quad Core processors, or to upgrade the Mac Mini from Core Duo to Core 2 Duo. Both are drop-in upgrades to the existing line-up, and at least _something_ new would have been in the stores to buy right away.
Users should simply be able to sit down at a system, log in and have all of the applications they need (and no more) available at the touch of a button. They should be unable to break the system, or otherwise infect it with spyware or viruses. And it should work that way day in, day out without fail.
It's called a mainframe. That's not "hip" anymore.
Everyone would be happy. The users would have a consistent, easy to use and reliable system which means they wouldn't have to call IT three times a day. IT would be able to add value to the business, increase business productivity instead of having to fight fires or re-train users constantly.
No users would be happy. They want to be able to surf any websites, check their home email, watch Google Video, view every forwarded flash email attachment, change their desktop wallpaper and cursors, install a pretty screen saver, chat on AIM, install every toolbar known to man, listen to their MP3s and Internet radio, and still have no spyware, viruses or problems.
I my experience, IT departments are often viewed by the business as pure red-ink. An annoying drain on their income that, because they often don't understand technology, know that they need but don't know why. IT deparments, in traditional businesses, don't directly add income. And because of that, they are expected to do the impossible at the snap of a finger, whenever the business asks for it. The IT group can start getting pushed around by "clueless users", and this can lead to a somewhat adversarial relationship within the company, with negative reactions from your IT staff.
Don't forget also that the IT staff implements technology that replaces users. A good IT department will save the company more money than it costs, in increased productivity and need for fewer staff.
I'm an IT manager and I'm all about helping business work better through IT. Some of my favorite endorsements are along the lines of "you don't make me feel stupid." What would be the point in that? I don't do what they do... which is most often making money for the company. In my job, I spend the company's money, so I do my best to make sure they feel they are getting their money's worth.
Every department spends the company's money. If you're doing your job correctly, you're saving the company more money than you're costing them. Because of IT, we no longer need typing pools, fleets of fax machines or, god forbid, couriers. We need far fewer salespeople, secretaries, accounting people, warehouse people and mail people.
I've seen two types of "newbies". The first are "newbies" or people who are ignorant of the field/topic but are completely willing to learn from someone with experience. Newbies are considerate users that are a pleasure to help (and also a rarity these days).
Wherever I am employed, I make an effort in my spare time to learn as much as I can about the company, from its production and distribution to its software backend systems (in the days before I started in IT), to its accounting procedures and systems. I've always found that I tend to be viewed as more valuable in the company when I take an interest in all of its varied processes and functions, and I just don't get it when some people refuse to look outside of their cubicle and learn what's beyond its borders.
Employees will find that they tend to get much better treatment from their IT staff if they take an interest in the well-being of their computer (ask how the problem can be avoided in the future, for instance), just as I found that taking an interest in the facilities got me better treatment from the facilities people, and taking an interest in doing my expense reports so that the accounting people could parse them more easily often got my expenses paid a week before my co-workers.
It's not that computers are new and frightening, its that its not some people area of interest so they don't care.
That's no excuse for refusing to learn how to do tasks essential to the job.
Other people have no care about their car's engine and how it works. This does not mean they do not need to travel.
True, but after they've run out of gas for the fourth or fifth time because they refuse to look at the gauge, or learn how the gauge works, I would tend to look for their replacement.
Unless you're an IT company, IT is a loss. IT sucks profits from the company. The best IT can hope to accomplish is to make the jobs of the people who do bring in the money easy enough that they can bring in MORE money that at least balances the cost of IT.
Sales people are a loss. Executives are a loss. HR is a loss. Janitorial is a loss. Production people are a loss. Administrative people are a loss. Accounting people are a loss.
Take away any of these functions, and the company cannot make money as quickly. Without accounting and HR, managers have to fill out their own forms, and employees have to deal with the insurance companies directly. Without janitorial, employees are emptying their own trash. Without IT, employees are back to pen and paper.
And guess what, they all have that holier-than-thou attitude. Sales people are the worst, because they think that they're the irreplaceable sole source of income for the company, and that one minute of their time is wasted money. And in a sense, that's true, but it is also true for every other department.
That "noob" who doesn't know anything about computers needs to be incredibly valuable to the company for your example to work. I'm not saying that the situation cannot happen. I'm saying that you'll have more instances where doubling the company's profitability will be more important than helping the "noob" learn how to operate a computer, on company time, at the company's expense, using company equipment and eating up your hours.
I used to work for a well-known mobile phone company, and basically every job description short of Janitorial included a requirement of "knowledge of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office." So when a salesperson comes on who doesn't know the first thing about a computer, I'm not going to drop everybody else's needs to show him how to use a mouse.
If a company's IT infrastructure starts spontaneously disintegrating after a month, I'd question the talent of the people that put it together.
Oh, I agree totally. And what's with all those people working day and night at the power plants? If those turbines can't keep spinning unmaintained for a month, I'd question the talent of the people that put it together.
It's not just people outside your company. People bitch about their IT department, but they also bitch about the HR people who 'act above the law', the Facilities people who refuse to upgrade them to that corner office that's been empty for months, the Accounting people who reject their expense reports because they're not stapled correctly, the Supplies people who make them accept cheap Bics instead of real pens, the receptionist who refuses to take a message...
Those of us in the 'support' industry hear all the time about how we're an unnecessary 'cost' to the company rather than an asset, and about how we have a bad attitude, despite the fact that we're treated the way we are, and despite the fact that we too are bound by strict budgets, upper-management decision makers, poor software systems, long hours, Sarbanes Oxley, etc. Guess what: sales people, executives, warehouse people, machine operators and marketing people are all 'costs' to the company as well. Let the sales people see how much less productive they are when they have to write down and fax all of their orders to be fulfilled, and have to manually call and check every day to see when those orders have been shipped.
This totally misses the point. That second car in the garage doesn't just fall apart. If you commute in a more efficient car 5 days a week (be it an EV, a Fit, Yaris, hybrid or even a used Kia), you're lengthening the life of that expensive truck or SUV. Owning two cars just means you'll drive twice as long before having to replace one.
Regarding taxes on trucks / SUVs. This is a silly idea.First of all, there are many people that do need trucks for one reason or another. For instance, hauling firewood doesn't work to well in your Prius.
So you haul firewood 7 days a week?
Or carpooling - supposedly a great thing - how many people can you fit in a Prius?
At least one more than you can seat on a bench seat in a pickup.
The rural population tends to have less income, yet has to travel longer distances in order to do shopping, go to the doctor, etc. and often for work. They often need the benefits that a real SUV is supposed to offer, including 4WD, larger wheels, etc because driving conditions can get really bad.
This isn't about the 5% of the population who needs a truck for their job. It's about the people clogging the freeways commuting solo in giant vehicles that get 13 mpg.
If these people can afford a $40,000 SUV, they can also afford a $11,000 Fit, Yaris or Kia to commute 5 days a week. And maybe that $40,000 SUV will retain its value for a bit longer.
Actually the best benefits (allthough it is tranny related) is the high precision control, IE every wheel on the train is powered, and any-slip on any wheel can be conter-acted in mSec timing. that would be a royal pain with mechanical linkages. same reason it works to link locos, they can share control with electric easier for the same reasons.
Actually each axle is powered by an electric motor rather than each wheel; there are also some locomotives where not all axles are powered.
Their is the whole thing of running the engine at it's most efficient speed continuously. the whole electric motors and 0 speed torque is crap.
Wrong. Electric motors put out their maximum torque at stall (0 RPM.)
Locomotives use electric motors because they can produce high torque at stall without a slipping linkage, they can operate in series/parallel to provide more torque at low RPMs and more horsepower at high RPMs, they provide dynamic braking to assist the mechanical braking and they operate at equal efficiency in either direction.
The old addage "2W of cooling for 1W of computer" holds true, if you keep 3-5 systems inside a house you will either:
A. need to leave an air con on low all the time (variable speed or "inverter" style ones are best)
B. deal with a stinking hot room and the possibility of cooked parts every now and again
C. Turn off some machines. Unless you're running a render farm 24x7, who needs to have a dozen machines running all the time? There's this wonderful thing called multitasking, which allows a single machine to handle many tasks.
So display a warning, just like they do if you choose "RAID 0" without purchasing two hard drives.
Then throw FreeDOS on the drive with an AUTOEXEC.BAT that says, "You chose to buy a computer without an operating system. If you wish to purchase an operating system, call Dell at (800) xxx.xxxx". Dell can then sell them Windows at full retail.
Sure it does. Go customize a mid-grade Precision workstation. They have hundreds of options they have to "start keeping track of," including the option to ship XP SP2 with or without media, 16 different RAID preconfiguration options (all "Add $0"), an option to enable or disable Hyperthreading by default and four different options to include disc and/or paper versions of the Resource Guide. Hell, on the consumer machines, you could choose between Earthlink pre-installed (Add $0) or AOL pre-installed (Add $0). Having a "No OS" option wouldn't even require them to maintain a separate disc image like a "Linux preinstall" would.
I'd rather have all of that capped off. If something gets clogged further downstream and somebody upstream gets too enthusiastic with a plunger, you could have sewage spraying around your server room.
Obviously you haven't been to my local town. The local coffee house charges 50% more than 'Bucks for poor inconsistent coffee. You also get to deal with surly teenage help and religious crap all over the place. Now they're bitching because 'Bucks is opening up a store a bit further up the road. I won't miss them when they go under.
According to a co-worker who just got her Explanation of Benefits, an emergency gallbladder removal and four-day stay in a hospital is $21,000. And that's the insurance-company-negotiated price.
Slashdot Mirror
Like spam and phishing, web advertising is an arms race, with the anti-ad software always having to up the ante against the ads. If Firefox got directly into this arms race, they'd lose their shirt, both in continual updates and user support when legitimate stuff gets blocked. Better to leave that to the plugin writers.
It wouldn't have cost them a dime to add a model to the Mac Pro lineup that uses the new Quad Core processors, or to upgrade the Mac Mini from Core Duo to Core 2 Duo. Both are drop-in upgrades to the existing line-up, and at least _something_ new would have been in the stores to buy right away.
Whenever I see "WIPO", I immediately think of Taco Snotting. Thanks, WIPO Troll!
It's like tons. The imperial measurement is the "crapload"; the metric measurement is the "metric crapload."
Users should simply be able to sit down at a system, log in and have all of the applications they need (and no more) available at the touch of a button. They should be unable to break the system, or otherwise infect it with spyware or viruses. And it should work that way day in, day out without fail.
It's called a mainframe. That's not "hip" anymore.
Everyone would be happy. The users would have a consistent, easy to use and reliable system which means they wouldn't have to call IT three times a day. IT would be able to add value to the business, increase business productivity instead of having to fight fires or re-train users constantly.
No users would be happy. They want to be able to surf any websites, check their home email, watch Google Video, view every forwarded flash email attachment, change their desktop wallpaper and cursors, install a pretty screen saver, chat on AIM, install every toolbar known to man, listen to their MP3s and Internet radio, and still have no spyware, viruses or problems.
Don't forget also that the IT staff implements technology that replaces users. A good IT department will save the company more money than it costs, in increased productivity and need for fewer staff.
Every department spends the company's money. If you're doing your job correctly, you're saving the company more money than you're costing them. Because of IT, we no longer need typing pools, fleets of fax machines or, god forbid, couriers. We need far fewer salespeople, secretaries, accounting people, warehouse people and mail people.
Wherever I am employed, I make an effort in my spare time to learn as much as I can about the company, from its production and distribution to its software backend systems (in the days before I started in IT), to its accounting procedures and systems. I've always found that I tend to be viewed as more valuable in the company when I take an interest in all of its varied processes and functions, and I just don't get it when some people refuse to look outside of their cubicle and learn what's beyond its borders.
Employees will find that they tend to get much better treatment from their IT staff if they take an interest in the well-being of their computer (ask how the problem can be avoided in the future, for instance), just as I found that taking an interest in the facilities got me better treatment from the facilities people, and taking an interest in doing my expense reports so that the accounting people could parse them more easily often got my expenses paid a week before my co-workers.
That's no excuse for refusing to learn how to do tasks essential to the job.
Other people have no care about their car's engine and how it works. This does not mean they do not need to travel.
True, but after they've run out of gas for the fourth or fifth time because they refuse to look at the gauge, or learn how the gauge works, I would tend to look for their replacement.
Sales people are a loss. Executives are a loss. HR is a loss. Janitorial is a loss. Production people are a loss. Administrative people are a loss. Accounting people are a loss.
Take away any of these functions, and the company cannot make money as quickly. Without accounting and HR, managers have to fill out their own forms, and employees have to deal with the insurance companies directly. Without janitorial, employees are emptying their own trash. Without IT, employees are back to pen and paper.
And guess what, they all have that holier-than-thou attitude. Sales people are the worst, because they think that they're the irreplaceable sole source of income for the company, and that one minute of their time is wasted money. And in a sense, that's true, but it is also true for every other department.
That "noob" who doesn't know anything about computers needs to be incredibly valuable to the company for your example to work. I'm not saying that the situation cannot happen. I'm saying that you'll have more instances where doubling the company's profitability will be more important than helping the "noob" learn how to operate a computer, on company time, at the company's expense, using company equipment and eating up your hours.
I used to work for a well-known mobile phone company, and basically every job description short of Janitorial included a requirement of "knowledge of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office." So when a salesperson comes on who doesn't know the first thing about a computer, I'm not going to drop everybody else's needs to show him how to use a mouse.
Oh, I agree totally. And what's with all those people working day and night at the power plants? If those turbines can't keep spinning unmaintained for a month, I'd question the talent of the people that put it together.
Those of us in the 'support' industry hear all the time about how we're an unnecessary 'cost' to the company rather than an asset, and about how we have a bad attitude, despite the fact that we're treated the way we are, and despite the fact that we too are bound by strict budgets, upper-management decision makers, poor software systems, long hours, Sarbanes Oxley, etc. Guess what: sales people, executives, warehouse people, machine operators and marketing people are all 'costs' to the company as well. Let the sales people see how much less productive they are when they have to write down and fax all of their orders to be fulfilled, and have to manually call and check every day to see when those orders have been shipped.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0069005/
Those women were in the nip!
This totally misses the point. That second car in the garage doesn't just fall apart. If you commute in a more efficient car 5 days a week (be it an EV, a Fit, Yaris, hybrid or even a used Kia), you're lengthening the life of that expensive truck or SUV. Owning two cars just means you'll drive twice as long before having to replace one.
So you haul firewood 7 days a week?
Or carpooling - supposedly a great thing - how many people can you fit in a Prius?
At least one more than you can seat on a bench seat in a pickup.
The rural population tends to have less income, yet has to travel longer distances in order to do shopping, go to the doctor, etc. and often for work. They often need the benefits that a real SUV is supposed to offer, including 4WD, larger wheels, etc because driving conditions can get really bad.
This isn't about the 5% of the population who needs a truck for their job. It's about the people clogging the freeways commuting solo in giant vehicles that get 13 mpg.
If these people can afford a $40,000 SUV, they can also afford a $11,000 Fit, Yaris or Kia to commute 5 days a week. And maybe that $40,000 SUV will retain its value for a bit longer.
Ford had a diesel and turbodiesel option in their first few years of Ranger production. 31 mpg combined. I wish they'd start making them again.
Actually each axle is powered by an electric motor rather than each wheel; there are also some locomotives where not all axles are powered.
Their is the whole thing of running the engine at it's most efficient speed continuously. the whole electric motors and 0 speed torque is crap.
Wrong. Electric motors put out their maximum torque at stall (0 RPM.)
Locomotives use electric motors because they can produce high torque at stall without a slipping linkage, they can operate in series/parallel to provide more torque at low RPMs and more horsepower at high RPMs, they provide dynamic braking to assist the mechanical braking and they operate at equal efficiency in either direction.
A. need to leave an air con on low all the time (variable speed or "inverter" style ones are best)
B. deal with a stinking hot room and the possibility of cooked parts every now and again
C. Turn off some machines. Unless you're running a render farm 24x7, who needs to have a dozen machines running all the time? There's this wonderful thing called multitasking, which allows a single machine to handle many tasks.
Then throw FreeDOS on the drive with an AUTOEXEC.BAT that says, "You chose to buy a computer without an operating system. If you wish to purchase an operating system, call Dell at (800) xxx.xxxx". Dell can then sell them Windows at full retail.
Windows 2000? Yes, a well-known mobile phone company in the US still uses Win2K on 15,000+ desktops and laptops.
Sure it does. Go customize a mid-grade Precision workstation. They have hundreds of options they have to "start keeping track of," including the option to ship XP SP2 with or without media, 16 different RAID preconfiguration options (all "Add $0"), an option to enable or disable Hyperthreading by default and four different options to include disc and/or paper versions of the Resource Guide. Hell, on the consumer machines, you could choose between Earthlink pre-installed (Add $0) or AOL pre-installed (Add $0). Having a "No OS" option wouldn't even require them to maintain a separate disc image like a "Linux preinstall" would.
I'd rather have all of that capped off. If something gets clogged further downstream and somebody upstream gets too enthusiastic with a plunger, you could have sewage spraying around your server room.
Obviously you haven't been to my local town. The local coffee house charges 50% more than 'Bucks for poor inconsistent coffee. You also get to deal with surly teenage help and religious crap all over the place. Now they're bitching because 'Bucks is opening up a store a bit further up the road. I won't miss them when they go under.
According to a co-worker who just got her Explanation of Benefits, an emergency gallbladder removal and four-day stay in a hospital is $21,000. And that's the insurance-company-negotiated price.