I've seen friends and family members die too soon. My father passed away while I was in college. He did not get to see his kids marry and start their own families, he did not get to meet his grandchildren.
He worked though. He worked 9-5 and overtime whenever he could get it. He put away a nice nest-egg and paid off the house that my mother lives in. He put off vacations and told my mother "we'll travel when I retire".
Well that day never came. 10 years of battling cancer finally killed him. What do you think his family remembers? His career or his ability to balance work and his life as a father?
It is your right to work to live. It is not your right to expect that all of society should place work above all else.
I've only got one life to live on this planet - I'm not going to spend it making someone else rich. I've seen too many people do that, and I can say it is not worth the opportunity cost of your LIFE.
Samsung is working on a "user upgradeable" TV with plug in modules. There was little detail about it at CES this year, but it appeared from the demos that you could plug in modules to upgrade CPU, operating system, and image processing components.
I don't know exactly how much of the TV is upgradeable, but Samsung suggested that most of the important bits of the TV could be upgraded this way.
We recently evaluated a new math curriculum/program for our school. When the time came to buy textbooks, almost all of our teachers told us they preferred the online material. The reasons they cited:
Students lose textbooks, or do not want to carry them home. Online resources are more easily accessed.
Parents want to check-in on their student's progress more frequently than a few times per year. Online access allows this.
Teachers like "ready made" interactive materials they can display on smartboards/projectors without having to resort to paper and overheads. It makes class preparation quicker, and the lessons more engaging.
We did eventually buy a few textbooks for students that prefer them, or lack technology resources at home, but the days of one book per student are going away fast.
What does it mean to 'reign supreme'? It means whatever you say is gospel, and whatever you say that needs to be done is carried out by whomever, your superiors and your subordinates. There aren't many hurdles to what you want to do and what you expect to do.
If this is what she believes "reign supreme" means - then yes, IT departments reign supreme. If this is not desirable, why does the rest of the business allow this to happen?
Because the answers to IT questions, much like other engineering related professions can not have "feel-good" or "mostly right" answers.
Many other professions have the luxury of being able to occasionally get things wrong. Marketing programs can be "mostly effective". A product design can be less than optimal and still sell. Food products can be somewhat good...etc..etc..etc.
In IT we need to get the answers right or stuff breaks - sometimes with devastating consequences to the business. If IT departments do the wrong things, bank accounts get hacked, flight control systems fail, emergency communication systems don't work when needed, pharmacies can't fill prescriptions..etc...etc...etc.
Engineers and Doctors probably have it worse than we do in this respect, but at the end of the day EVERY company needs IT to do its work. IT departments are expected day in and day out to provide the systems that make this work possible.
If IT departments "reign supreme" it's simply because the business requires it to be so.
I don't care about openness, business models, or market share. What I do demand (and so do the users I support) is reliability and stability.
It's a phone - it needs to be reliable.
The users I support seem to have the same complaints about iOS - lots of stuff breaks every time Apple does a major upgrade.
Apple's forums are loaded with complaints of Bluetooth problems, call quality problems, battery life issues, and synchronization and content problems. It's been this way since iOS 3, and iOS 4, and iOS 5.
Eventually Apple gets around to fixing these things, but I've grown tired of the 2-3 months after EVERY release where Apple puts their fingers in their ears and sings "La, La, La, La, La" - there are no problems.
Apple really needs to fire the entire iOS QA/testing department and start over. Those guys are not doing their jobs.
Meanwhile my droid razr is quite nice - "it just works".
Actually,no it doesn't. There is no hydraulic pump or reservoir for the steering system in my car. I know, I've looked for it, and I've actually seen the steering rack pulled from another 2008 GTI - no hydraulic lines at all.
It is a pure electric system - not a hybrid system as in the 2011/2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
My 2008 VW GTI has an electric assist rack, and it is one of the best systems I've ever felt in terms of feedback and heft. I've also driven overboosted hydraulic systems that feel like mush.
Electric assist steering can be done well, and hydraulics can be done poorly. The technology isn't to blame, it's the engineering that matters.
Some HP printers' firmware can be upgraded simply by sending the network card an appropriately formated "print job". No authentication is necessary.
I realized this years ago while troubleshooting a printer with an HP technician. HP's own flash upgrade software uses the printer port settings on your local computer, and sends the update via those settings.
It seems any device that can talk to those printers on port 9100 can compromise those printers.
A simple solution would be to require some sort of manual intervention at the control panel to perform firmware upgrades.
I worked for a consulting firm during my time in College, and I ran Linux to complete my programming projects from home.
I supported Windows 95 for many years while personally running Red Hat 3 and 4 on my personal machine. Yes, Red Hat's GUI wasn't very good, and making sound cards work was an exercise in patience, but it never blew up like Windows 95 did.
I remember many guys that would stubbornly hold on to DOS, and one huge reason was the lack of stability in Windows 95.
I would imagine this is a potentially good place to start reducing the amount of antibiotics being used. I'm no biologist, but prophylactic antibiotic use on this scale is probably unnecessary. Don't count on the farming industry to do this on their own though....
I've seen plenty of people plug their cable modems right into the back of their computer with no firewall of any kind. Thankfully, most operating systems ship with a software firewall - it's better than nothing. Most of these types of customers bought a nat box, not due to security concerns, but to get wireless connectivity.
IPv6 direct connectivity will be a problem ONLY if end users plug all of their devices into a switch and those devices lack a software firewall. I don't know of any "non-technical" home users that have such a switch. Everyone seems to have a "nat box" simply for wireless connectivity. I suspect people will not go buy a dumb switch and access point, simply because they do not know what they are.
I suspect most people will go buy an "IPv6 capable" firewall/switch with built in access-point. End users will have no idea that they no longer use nat - hell most probably don't even know they have it now.
Our Hub and Client Access server is only exposed to the internet via SSL. ActiveSync works via SSL, which, last I checked, is encrypted. Yes you do need to expose IIS to the internet, but there are lots of proxy boxes that can limit the exposure of IIS to the internet. You can even offload SSL to another device closer to the internet so your intrusion detection systems and app firewalls can look at the traffic getting to IIS.
Our SMTP box only talks to postini. This is enforced via static rules in our firewall.
You can secure Exchange server - thousands of companies do that successfully every day. It does require a bit of work though.
ActiveSync also enforces client side policies like password strength and remote wipe.
Finally iPhone encrypts the data on the device.
How much more encryption and security do you want?
I recently had an array fail with Western Digital's 2TB Green Drives. Two simultaneous failures is HIGHLY unlikely so I concluded that the drives and the RAID controller didn't play well together.
So I replaced the drives with Western Digital's "RE-4" series drives. Sure enough, the array works just fine.
I put the two drives side by side - the only difference I could see was the color of the sticker on the top of the drive.
Western Digital explained that the firmware differences in the "enterprise" drive allow it to work properly on a RAID controller.
Why wasn't this the case years ago? I suspect drive manufacturers are just using these slight differences to charge double for their "enterprise" garbage.
This guy is griping that iCloud doesn't sync up his outlook stuff across his iPhone, Windows laptop, and Android device.
Newsflash dude, I'm doing all of that with the exact items he is having difficulty with - guess how?
Exchange Server. We run it at our BUSINESS since we want BUSINESS functionality - and it works perfectly with "consumer" devices. He's right iCloud doesn't do what Exchange does. That's why you buy Exchange.
Next he'll complain that a wrench doesn't hammer in nails properly.
Software is no different than any other written material. These writings are expressions of ideas - nothing more. Software should be protected by copyright and not by patents.
Things or processes that exist in the natural world, including the mathematics to describe those things or processes should not be patentable. Patents should be reserved for physical devices that are unique and non-obivous to someone skilled in the art.
At this point in our human history, patents should be extremely rare, granted only to new things - not evolutionary improvements of existing things.
When I worked in the finance industry, we bought AX100s from Dell - those were for the less critical systems. We cared less about support and more about cost.
We bought Symmetrix and Clariion products direct from EMC. We did not want to deal with Dell tech support for those very critical systems. We paid through the nose, but EMC's support and training was top-notch.
I'm sure everyone has their opinion, but after throwing away a bunch of $2000 HP printers in the last year, we've had enough.
I started buying Xerox and Oki printers and so far, they have been fantastic. The Okis in particular seem to be built well enough to take a bullet, and the toner cartridges are huge compared to an equivalent HP printer, yet they are priced about the same.
I think we are done with HP forever at this point.
When I worked for a bank, we had human review of any large transaction that would move money out of the bank. Sure, IT was involved in that, but the process was 90% policy and human activity.
Dumping risk management practices on automated IT systems is just plain lazy and stupid.
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I work to live, I don't live to work.
I've seen friends and family members die too soon. My father passed away while I was in college. He did not get to see his kids marry and start their own families, he did not get to meet his grandchildren.
He worked though. He worked 9-5 and overtime whenever he could get it. He put away a nice nest-egg and paid off the house that my mother lives in. He put off vacations and told my mother "we'll travel when I retire".
Well that day never came. 10 years of battling cancer finally killed him. What do you think his family remembers? His career or his ability to balance work and his life as a father?
It is your right to work to live. It is not your right to expect that all of society should place work above all else.
I've only got one life to live on this planet - I'm not going to spend it making someone else rich. I've seen too many people do that, and I can say it is not worth the opportunity cost of your LIFE.
-ted
The only way to kill Hollywood: stop buying the product. Money feeds this beast. Take away the revenue and the whole thing falls down.
It really is that simple.
-ted
Samsung is working on a "user upgradeable" TV with plug in modules. There was little detail about it at CES this year, but it appeared from the demos that you could plug in modules to upgrade CPU, operating system, and image processing components.
I don't know exactly how much of the TV is upgradeable, but Samsung suggested that most of the important bits of the TV could be upgraded this way.
-ted
We recently evaluated a new math curriculum/program for our school. When the time came to buy textbooks, almost all of our teachers told us they preferred the online material. The reasons they cited:
Students lose textbooks, or do not want to carry them home. Online resources are more easily accessed.
Parents want to check-in on their student's progress more frequently than a few times per year. Online access allows this.
Teachers like "ready made" interactive materials they can display on smartboards/projectors without having to resort to paper and overheads. It makes class preparation quicker, and the lessons more engaging.
We did eventually buy a few textbooks for students that prefer them, or lack technology resources at home, but the days of one book per student are going away fast.
I always get a funny look from the cashier when I order an Angus deluxe and a side salad - without fries or soda.
Once I was asked if I was "one of them healthy people". I simply told her I don't like crappy food.
What does it mean to 'reign supreme'? It means whatever you say is gospel, and whatever you say that needs to be done is carried out by whomever, your superiors and your subordinates. There aren't many hurdles to what you want to do and what you expect to do.
If this is what she believes "reign supreme" means - then yes, IT departments reign supreme. If this is not desirable, why does the rest of the business allow this to happen?
Because the answers to IT questions, much like other engineering related professions can not have "feel-good" or "mostly right" answers.
Many other professions have the luxury of being able to occasionally get things wrong. Marketing programs can be "mostly effective". A product design can be less than optimal and still sell. Food products can be somewhat good...etc..etc..etc.
In IT we need to get the answers right or stuff breaks - sometimes with devastating consequences to the business. If IT departments do the wrong things, bank accounts get hacked, flight control systems fail, emergency communication systems don't work when needed, pharmacies can't fill prescriptions..etc...etc...etc.
Engineers and Doctors probably have it worse than we do in this respect, but at the end of the day EVERY company needs IT to do its work. IT departments are expected day in and day out to provide the systems that make this work possible.
If IT departments "reign supreme" it's simply because the business requires it to be so.
I don't care about openness, business models, or market share. What I do demand (and so do the users I support) is reliability and stability.
It's a phone - it needs to be reliable.
The users I support seem to have the same complaints about iOS - lots of stuff breaks every time Apple does a major upgrade.
Apple's forums are loaded with complaints of Bluetooth problems, call quality problems, battery life issues, and synchronization and content problems. It's been this way since iOS 3, and iOS 4, and iOS 5.
Eventually Apple gets around to fixing these things, but I've grown tired of the 2-3 months after EVERY release where Apple puts their fingers in their ears and sings "La, La, La, La, La" - there are no problems.
Apple really needs to fire the entire iOS QA/testing department and start over. Those guys are not doing their jobs.
Meanwhile my droid razr is quite nice - "it just works".
http://www.volkswagen.com/vwcms/master_public/virtualmaster/en2/experience/innovation/technical_glossary/electromechanical.index.html
Actually,no it doesn't. There is no hydraulic pump or reservoir for the steering system in my car. I know, I've looked for it, and I've actually seen the steering rack pulled from another 2008 GTI - no hydraulic lines at all.
It is a pure electric system - not a hybrid system as in the 2011/2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
My 2008 VW GTI has an electric assist rack, and it is one of the best systems I've ever felt in terms of feedback and heft. I've also driven overboosted hydraulic systems that feel like mush.
Electric assist steering can be done well, and hydraulics can be done poorly. The technology isn't to blame, it's the engineering that matters.
Some HP printers' firmware can be upgraded simply by sending the network card an appropriately formated "print job". No authentication is necessary.
I realized this years ago while troubleshooting a printer with an HP technician. HP's own flash upgrade software uses the printer port settings on your local computer, and sends the update via those settings.
It seems any device that can talk to those printers on port 9100 can compromise those printers.
A simple solution would be to require some sort of manual intervention at the control panel to perform firmware upgrades.
Share price is a function of revenues. Cash flow and profitability determine stock price.
Companies that do little to generate cash and profits don't deserve a high share price. Did the dot com boom teach us nothing?
Until we started building our servers as VMs, I always thought - leave well enough alone. Patch when necessary, but don't mess with success.
Decoupling servers from hardware has been a huge help to our testing, backup, patching, and recovery processes.
Server borked? Restore the most recent snapshot on another machine - or better still have the hypervisor do it for you.
We even have our servers snapshotted before and after patching - just in case.
-ted
I worked for a consulting firm during my time in College, and I ran Linux to complete my programming projects from home.
I supported Windows 95 for many years while personally running Red Hat 3 and 4 on my personal machine. Yes, Red Hat's GUI wasn't very good, and making sound cards work was an exercise in patience, but it never blew up like Windows 95 did.
I remember many guys that would stubbornly hold on to DOS, and one huge reason was the lack of stability in Windows 95.
There was a wired article a while back about the amount of antibiotics used by farm animals in the US:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/news-update-farm-animals-get-80-of-antibiotics-sold-in-us/
I would imagine this is a potentially good place to start reducing the amount of antibiotics being used. I'm no biologist, but prophylactic antibiotic use on this scale is probably unnecessary. Don't count on the farming industry to do this on their own though....
-ted
It's been a while since college, but I remember the Lithium in water experiment very well.
Next NHTSA will discover that 20 gallons of gasoline sitting under the back seat is also a fire hazard.
-ted
I've seen plenty of people plug their cable modems right into the back of their computer with no firewall of any kind. Thankfully, most operating systems ship with a software firewall - it's better than nothing. Most of these types of customers bought a nat box, not due to security concerns, but to get wireless connectivity.
IPv6 direct connectivity will be a problem ONLY if end users plug all of their devices into a switch and those devices lack a software firewall. I don't know of any "non-technical" home users that have such a switch. Everyone seems to have a "nat box" simply for wireless connectivity. I suspect people will not go buy a dumb switch and access point, simply because they do not know what they are.
I suspect most people will go buy an "IPv6 capable" firewall/switch with built in access-point. End users will have no idea that they no longer use nat - hell most probably don't even know they have it now.
-ted
Our Hub and Client Access server is only exposed to the internet via SSL. ActiveSync works via SSL, which, last I checked, is encrypted. Yes you do need to expose IIS to the internet, but there are lots of proxy boxes that can limit the exposure of IIS to the internet. You can even offload SSL to another device closer to the internet so your intrusion detection systems and app firewalls can look at the traffic getting to IIS.
Our SMTP box only talks to postini. This is enforced via static rules in our firewall.
You can secure Exchange server - thousands of companies do that successfully every day. It does require a bit of work though.
ActiveSync also enforces client side policies like password strength and remote wipe.
Finally iPhone encrypts the data on the device.
How much more encryption and security do you want?
-ted
I recently had an array fail with Western Digital's 2TB Green Drives. Two simultaneous failures is HIGHLY unlikely so I concluded that the drives and the RAID controller didn't play well together.
So I replaced the drives with Western Digital's "RE-4" series drives. Sure enough, the array works just fine.
I put the two drives side by side - the only difference I could see was the color of the sticker on the top of the drive.
Western Digital explained that the firmware differences in the "enterprise" drive allow it to work properly on a RAID controller.
Why wasn't this the case years ago? I suspect drive manufacturers are just using these slight differences to charge double for their "enterprise" garbage.
-ted
This guy is griping that iCloud doesn't sync up his outlook stuff across his iPhone, Windows laptop, and Android device.
Newsflash dude, I'm doing all of that with the exact items he is having difficulty with - guess how?
Exchange Server. We run it at our BUSINESS since we want BUSINESS functionality - and it works perfectly with "consumer" devices. He's right iCloud doesn't do what Exchange does. That's why you buy Exchange.
Next he'll complain that a wrench doesn't hammer in nails properly.
-ted
Software is no different than any other written material. These writings are expressions of ideas - nothing more. Software should be protected by copyright and not by patents.
Things or processes that exist in the natural world, including the mathematics to describe those things or processes should not be patentable. Patents should be reserved for physical devices that are unique and non-obivous to someone skilled in the art.
At this point in our human history, patents should be extremely rare, granted only to new things - not evolutionary improvements of existing things.
General
Hardware
Oriented
System
Transfer
I actually used ghost before symantec bought it. I feel like a hipster sysadmin....
-ted
When I worked in the finance industry, we bought AX100s from Dell - those were for the less critical systems. We cared less about support and more about cost.
We bought Symmetrix and Clariion products direct from EMC. We did not want to deal with Dell tech support for those very critical systems. We paid through the nose, but EMC's support and training was top-notch.
-ted
I'm sure everyone has their opinion, but after throwing away a bunch of $2000 HP printers in the last year, we've had enough.
I started buying Xerox and Oki printers and so far, they have been fantastic. The Okis in particular seem to be built well enough to take a bullet, and the toner cartridges are huge compared to an equivalent HP printer, yet they are priced about the same.
I think we are done with HP forever at this point.
When I worked for a bank, we had human review of any large transaction that would move money out of the bank. Sure, IT was involved in that, but the process was 90% policy and human activity.
Dumping risk management practices on automated IT systems is just plain lazy and stupid.