I've read probably about half the >= +2 comments, and I saw a lot of them bitching about "reducing the employee to a string of numbers". I'm not sure what company these folks work for (or if they even work), but guess what? You already are a string of numbers to most places.
Take your job for example. What's the easiest way to keep one employee straight from another one? Assign some type of unique identification to each one. The easiest uniqie ID thus far has been a number...you don't run out of them!
Now, you have to keep in mind that this number is really only used on the backend systems...the payroll system, the employee benefits system, the HR system. You don't see employee #57823 greet you with "Hi, 23884!" do you? If you, please stop reading now, and find a new job. Your co-workers are freaks.
And metrics? Yeah, they're important. It's important for a company (or at least most companies) to make money, correct? So you need to know where you are spending your money to figure out how much you're gonna have left. One component of this is, you guessed it, finding out how much you're paying your employees! Now these hourly folks, you don't want them clocking each other in when they're not actually on the job, or otherwise finding a way to cheat the system (disclaimer: all systems can be cheated in some way)? In other words, getting paid for time they didn't work? Of course not. Would you pay the plumber for time he wasn't actually working on your clogged toilet? Pay the auto mechanic for time he wasn't working on somebody else's car? Pay the web monkey for time he wasn't marking up a webpage? No. You're not going to waste money.
So you're going to have your bosses, or at least the accountants in your company, run numbers to find out where the money's going. And this kind of thing isn't new, it's not some metrics trend, it's been going on for quite awhile now.
What about some other places? Do you think that store cares to know your name? The big one you buy your clothes at? Of course not, what possible use does that serve them? The mom and pop shops might, but they can afford to, that's their allure. But the larger shops aren't in the business of knowing the names of all their customers, they're in the business of providing you with a large selection of products to purchase. The larger entities in society don't care to know your name. There's no reason to know your name.
Yes, it is true, you are a number to them. Yes, they can probably track you and find out that "Customer #349374 likes to purchase grapes, red t-shirts, and fishing magazines, so we need to market product X to them". They can probably match this stuff to your home address and begin mailing you circulars.
But that's more to do with privacy which isn't going to be touched on here:) (And for anybody that cares, I'm all for privacy)
Yeah, cept it looks like that's for Palms/PocketPCs (it's late and I didn't read enough to see if they offered a cell phone service...be surprised if they didn't). Anyway, yeah, that's pretty cool. If I travelled more and had a decent Palm/PocketPC, I'd maybe subscribe to it...hell, $25 a year? Pretty cheap.
Of course, the main one is what the article mentioned...reviews of different things. You could be in an unfamiliar city, walking through trying to find a good restaurant. In front of one, you bring up the service, and it tells you different things people posted ("Don't get the clam chowder!!! It's death in a bowl!", "The fries are great!").
Another thing would be interesting sites or things to look for. For example, you're drinking in an old bar, you bring up the service and can view different messages like "This bar caught fire in 1938. See the charred board behind the bar on the right-hand side? They left that as a reminder." or you're at a scenic turn-off in the mountains you might get "If you look to the north-west, you might be able to see the skyline of [insert city]."
Of course there's the whole advertising thing, but depending on how it's setup, it could be a good thing. Walk into a store, get virtual coupons or something.
Something else that could be kinda fun would be a graffiti board of some type...probably have numerous problems, but c'est la vie.
Without looking at their product, I'll make a good guess that the reason it's IE-only is because they're using the "contenteditable" attribute that can be set for a developer-defined area in IE to do the editor. This isn't a standard AFAIK, but one of the many things MS has included in IE (hence the IE-only requirement).
I currently use it in an application at work (but we've standardized on IE for browsers, so no problem) with no problems. My only gripe (and this is a big one IMO) is that it rewrites the HTML as that wonderfully crappy MSHTML. Capitalizes all tags, moves code a bit, etc. It's big use is being able to design your own web-based HTML-editor quickly and easily so people who don't squat about HTML (as it's a very difficult language to pick up;) can update a webpage.
Feel sorry for the network guys...having to listen to "You've got sound!" all day from one or more of these routers would probably get rather annoying...
Eh...did I read the same article?
on
Is Linux Dead?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I don't know if somebody switched links or something, but I must've read a different article than whoever submitted this. The article was actually right on track IMO.
It's hardly mentioning it as a failed operating system, rather saying "A recent survey of 800 companies in North America and Western Europe found that some 40 percent said they were either using or testing Linux, according to the research firm IDC. With some 27 percent of the market, Linux is now the second most popular operating system for servers, supplanting the decades-old operating system UNIX..."
It continues with more info, but mostly what we've all heard before...Linux faces an uphill battle in the desktop arena, does well in the server arena, etc.
Oh, wait. I'm sorry, I'm completely mistaken in this post. The article came from MSNBC, a "Microsoft-NBC joint venture". Therefore it must slam Linux at every possible turn. It's not possible that it actually might report information we'd agree with.
My company uses Citrix as a remote access solution, effectively the same thing as you're talking about, albeit over a greater distance (continental US). I've used it quite a bit from my home PC on the east coast connecting to the Citrix server on the west coast with no problems.
I don't administer the actual server, but from my understanding, certain groups are setup to see different applications: developers might see whatever development tools they use, remote sales folks see whatever tools they use, etc. Other things (access to Windows Explorer, the "Run" dialog box, etc. can also be locked down).
My experience thus far has been a very positive one. It's been a relatively quick connection as well, especially considering the distance. Unfortunately, as I didn't set the system up, I can't really provide anymore information than what I've said so far.
In terms of having longer lives for the current lab PCs, I figure as long as they can still run the Citrix client, there shouldn't be any problems.
Considering the kids will most likely be on a Windows computer with Internet Explorer 4.x or higher, there should be no problem. Flash is pre-bundled with most new browsers these days.
I'm so tired of all the "if it doesn't work in Lynx, it's not a good design", "no flash because I don't like it", "don't use " crap.
If you design a website, the first thing you should do is find out who your audience is. Once you know who your audience is, then you can start figuring out how the design should work. It's all about the audience.
For example, you're designing a site that whose audience will be mostly elderly people. Make sure your font sizes can be increased and this won't break the design. Make any clickable links large and easy to hit.
Or, maybe your site is for kids. Make sure the site is flashy (perhaps use flash), cartoony. Any text areas are short and can be digested quickly and easily.
Another example, you're building a help site. No flash, no DHTML (unless where it helps the user get to what they want quicker), little eye-candy. The user who hits this site will not care in the least how multimedia-rich it is. All they want is to find the answer to their question and leave, so give them the quickest route to that answer without all the crap.
Anyway, just my two cents. All the "don't use this because it doesn't work in all browsers" is crap, IMHO. Know who your users are/will be. Know what they use/will use. Know what their skill level is/will be. Then design your site based on those guidelines.
I don't do open-source dev work, but I have done stuff for free in the past (websites, pc support). Why? Personally, I'll do stuff for free simply because I enjoy doing it. It's more of a hobby than a job, and I don't expect, nor have a need, to get paid for it.
For some people (a lot?), just the sense of accomplishment and pat on the back is payment enough. And sometimes it's worth more than money just to know that somebody has a use for, and possibly enjoys using, the product you provided them at no cost.
I make enough at my day job to pay the bills, buy neat stuff, etc., so it's not imperative I get paid for every little thing I do in my freetime. Sometimes I just need to enjoy it.
I need to preface this by saying I do have an ASUS V7700 GeForce 2 Pure, but I do not run this see-through crap (actually don't know, and don't care, how to turn it on).
This obviously has no place for online gaming. Yeah, people will make cheats, that's pretty hard to avoid.
What if ASUS were able to put in something that, upon detecting a net connection turns off this "feature"? I don't write drivers and stuff, but something like this should be possible? That would leave this feature available offline, and I certainly would have no problem with this being available in a single player game. The only problem is for people who have always-on connections... Perhaps add non-standard port usage detection and disable it then?
It seems as if ASUS is doing the "Hey, look at what we can do" crap without thinking about its effects. Granted, it doesn't have to be used for cheating, but I think if you're going to market a product to a group, and your product contains a "feature" that is harmful to said group, then you definitely have a problem. And you need to fix it.
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I've read probably about half the >= +2 comments, and I saw a lot of them bitching about "reducing the employee to a string of numbers". I'm not sure what company these folks work for (or if they even work), but guess what? You already are a string of numbers to most places.
:) (And for anybody that cares, I'm all for privacy)
Take your job for example. What's the easiest way to keep one employee straight from another one? Assign some type of unique identification to each one. The easiest uniqie ID thus far has been a number...you don't run out of them!
Now, you have to keep in mind that this number is really only used on the backend systems...the payroll system, the employee benefits system, the HR system. You don't see employee #57823 greet you with "Hi, 23884!" do you? If you, please stop reading now, and find a new job. Your co-workers are freaks.
And metrics? Yeah, they're important. It's important for a company (or at least most companies) to make money, correct? So you need to know where you are spending your money to figure out how much you're gonna have left. One component of this is, you guessed it, finding out how much you're paying your employees! Now these hourly folks, you don't want them clocking each other in when they're not actually on the job, or otherwise finding a way to cheat the system (disclaimer: all systems can be cheated in some way)? In other words, getting paid for time they didn't work? Of course not. Would you pay the plumber for time he wasn't actually working on your clogged toilet? Pay the auto mechanic for time he wasn't working on somebody else's car? Pay the web monkey for time he wasn't marking up a webpage? No. You're not going to waste money.
So you're going to have your bosses, or at least the accountants in your company, run numbers to find out where the money's going. And this kind of thing isn't new, it's not some metrics trend, it's been going on for quite awhile now.
What about some other places? Do you think that store cares to know your name? The big one you buy your clothes at? Of course not, what possible use does that serve them? The mom and pop shops might, but they can afford to, that's their allure. But the larger shops aren't in the business of knowing the names of all their customers, they're in the business of providing you with a large selection of products to purchase. The larger entities in society don't care to know your name. There's no reason to know your name.
Yes, it is true, you are a number to them. Yes, they can probably track you and find out that "Customer #349374 likes to purchase grapes, red t-shirts, and fishing magazines, so we need to market product X to them". They can probably match this stuff to your home address and begin mailing you circulars.
But that's more to do with privacy which isn't going to be touched on here
Yeah, cept it looks like that's for Palms/PocketPCs (it's late and I didn't read enough to see if they offered a cell phone service...be surprised if they didn't). Anyway, yeah, that's pretty cool. If I travelled more and had a decent Palm/PocketPC, I'd maybe subscribe to it...hell, $25 a year? Pretty cheap.
Of course, the main one is what the article mentioned...reviews of different things. You could be in an unfamiliar city, walking through trying to find a good restaurant. In front of one, you bring up the service, and it tells you different things people posted ("Don't get the clam chowder!!! It's death in a bowl!", "The fries are great!").
Another thing would be interesting sites or things to look for. For example, you're drinking in an old bar, you bring up the service and can view different messages like "This bar caught fire in 1938. See the charred board behind the bar on the right-hand side? They left that as a reminder." or you're at a scenic turn-off in the mountains you might get "If you look to the north-west, you might be able to see the skyline of [insert city]."
Of course there's the whole advertising thing, but depending on how it's setup, it could be a good thing. Walk into a store, get virtual coupons or something.
Something else that could be kinda fun would be a graffiti board of some type...probably have numerous problems, but c'est la vie.
Right, that's what I'm talking about. You can invoke it by setting the "contenteditable" attribute in a tag, for example.
Without looking at their product, I'll make a good guess that the reason it's IE-only is because they're using the "contenteditable" attribute that can be set for a developer-defined area in IE to do the editor. This isn't a standard AFAIK, but one of the many things MS has included in IE (hence the IE-only requirement).
;) can update a webpage.
I currently use it in an application at work (but we've standardized on IE for browsers, so no problem) with no problems. My only gripe (and this is a big one IMO) is that it rewrites the HTML as that wonderfully crappy MSHTML. Capitalizes all tags, moves code a bit, etc. It's big use is being able to design your own web-based HTML-editor quickly and easily so people who don't squat about HTML (as it's a very difficult language to pick up
Gah...I meant switches, not routers. Damn, now the whole joke is ruined, bad as it was :(
Feel sorry for the network guys...having to listen to "You've got sound!" all day from one or more of these routers would probably get rather annoying...
I don't know if somebody switched links or something, but I must've read a different article than whoever submitted this. The article was actually right on track IMO.
It's hardly mentioning it as a failed operating system, rather saying "A recent survey of 800 companies in North America and Western Europe found that some 40 percent said they were either using or testing Linux, according to the research firm IDC. With some 27 percent of the market, Linux is now the second most popular operating system for servers, supplanting the decades-old operating system UNIX..."
It continues with more info, but mostly what we've all heard before...Linux faces an uphill battle in the desktop arena, does well in the server arena, etc.
Oh, wait. I'm sorry, I'm completely mistaken in this post. The article came from MSNBC, a "Microsoft-NBC joint venture". Therefore it must slam Linux at every possible turn. It's not possible that it actually might report information we'd agree with.
Get a grip people, jesus.
My company uses Citrix as a remote access solution, effectively the same thing as you're talking about, albeit over a greater distance (continental US). I've used it quite a bit from my home PC on the east coast connecting to the Citrix server on the west coast with no problems.
I don't administer the actual server, but from my understanding, certain groups are setup to see different applications: developers might see whatever development tools they use, remote sales folks see whatever tools they use, etc. Other things (access to Windows Explorer, the "Run" dialog box, etc. can also be locked down).
My experience thus far has been a very positive one. It's been a relatively quick connection as well, especially considering the distance. Unfortunately, as I didn't set the system up, I can't really provide anymore information than what I've said so far.
In terms of having longer lives for the current lab PCs, I figure as long as they can still run the Citrix client, there shouldn't be any problems.
Considering the kids will most likely be on a Windows computer with Internet Explorer 4.x or higher, there should be no problem. Flash is pre-bundled with most new browsers these days.
I'm so tired of all the "if it doesn't work in Lynx, it's not a good design", "no flash because I don't like it", "don't use " crap.
If you design a website, the first thing you should do is find out who your audience is. Once you know who your audience is, then you can start figuring out how the design should work. It's all about the audience.
For example, you're designing a site that whose audience will be mostly elderly people. Make sure your font sizes can be increased and this won't break the design. Make any clickable links large and easy to hit.
Or, maybe your site is for kids. Make sure the site is flashy (perhaps use flash), cartoony. Any text areas are short and can be digested quickly and easily.
Another example, you're building a help site. No flash, no DHTML (unless where it helps the user get to what they want quicker), little eye-candy. The user who hits this site will not care in the least how multimedia-rich it is. All they want is to find the answer to their question and leave, so give them the quickest route to that answer without all the crap.
Anyway, just my two cents. All the "don't use this because it doesn't work in all browsers" is crap, IMHO. Know who your users are/will be. Know what they use/will use. Know what their skill level is/will be. Then design your site based on those guidelines.
I don't do open-source dev work, but I have done stuff for free in the past (websites, pc support). Why? Personally, I'll do stuff for free simply because I enjoy doing it. It's more of a hobby than a job, and I don't expect, nor have a need, to get paid for it.
For some people (a lot?), just the sense of accomplishment and pat on the back is payment enough. And sometimes it's worth more than money just to know that somebody has a use for, and possibly enjoys using, the product you provided them at no cost.
I make enough at my day job to pay the bills, buy neat stuff, etc., so it's not imperative I get paid for every little thing I do in my freetime. Sometimes I just need to enjoy it.
--mh
I need to preface this by saying I do have an ASUS V7700 GeForce 2 Pure, but I do not run this see-through crap (actually don't know, and don't care, how to turn it on).
This obviously has no place for online gaming. Yeah, people will make cheats, that's pretty hard to avoid.
What if ASUS were able to put in something that, upon detecting a net connection turns off this "feature"? I don't write drivers and stuff, but something like this should be possible? That would leave this feature available offline, and I certainly would have no problem with this being available in a single player game. The only problem is for people who have always-on connections... Perhaps add non-standard port usage detection and disable it then?
It seems as if ASUS is doing the "Hey, look at what we can do" crap without thinking about its effects. Granted, it doesn't have to be used for cheating, but I think if you're going to market a product to a group, and your product contains a "feature" that is harmful to said group, then you definitely have a problem. And you need to fix it.