Even more inconsistent - on my home PC, I can't use GMail with my Firefox installation (been a problem for a long time, just can't get past their "loading" message), yet PortableFirefox on my USB stick works fine. I think they're the same AdBlock, same filters.
Or for auditing Sarbanes-Oxley. I have to be able to reconcile every change made to my system. Yes, we keep a paper trail, but being able to go back to the code and point at the exact change, exact date & time and who committed it for the auditors is a big deal. And a lot easier than sifting through binder upon binder of paper.
When did the OP ("Tim") ever say it was one of his scripts? It's reasonable that it was a script another customer had put out there and the OP was collateral damage. Which makes it all even more ludicrous. But not something the OP could have ever controlled.
NY (ok, CA's emissions standards) has even made it harder for light and medium trucks. The Jeep Liberty CRD (diesel) is classified by the government not as a passenger car but an SUV, and still isn't available in NY or CA. When Dodge came out with its higher-output Cummins diesels in their 3/4- and 1-ton pickups (these are vehicles which, if gas-powered, don't even require EPA estimates on the window sticker due to size/weight), it was almost a full model year before CA-emissions states were able to purchase them.
Then it's a shortened 3/4 ton Suburban chassis (and since a Suburban is just a long Tahoe, they're basically the same).
My "serious" comment was that while the H1 Alpha isn't up to military spec, it's the same platform and a hell of a lot more substantial than an H2 and there's really no comparing the two. H2s break in mild off-road use. A lot.
A Hummer H2 has no relation to the military Hummer, except name and styling cues. The Hummer H2 is just a glorified Chevy Tahoe SUV on a 3/4 ton chassis. The H1 "Alpha" is based on the actual military Hummer and while not as robust as a military-spec model, it's still a serious piece of hardware.
Many shops/lone coders/projects operate w/o version control simply out of ignorance - they just don't know that it's out there, or don't see an application for it in their process. Others are just plain intimidated by it.
If you've used version control for as long as you remember, of course you'll see the need and benefit. To someone who's never used it, they need to see WHY they should use it. The introductory chapter from any book on version control should help quite a bit here (I really like Practical Version Control Using Subversion for this). But I don't think the boss in question is the type who'll read it and internalize.
I'm very lucky that my new job (been there 2 months now) asked me about a week into working there "we need you to give us a recommendation on source control software." It was really driven by Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, but I was more than happy to get that assignment. I had set up Visual SourceSafe at my last job about 6 years ago because another group was forcing us to get "in line" with the mainframe's version-controlled world and the tool they wanted us to use sucked ass for our application. VSS sucked, but it sucked less than the version of PVCS we were being pushed into and it sucked a lot less than having nothing at all. Since it was an MS shop, VSS was pretty much the only sane choice in 1999.
I was able to bypass VSS for this job and went straight to Subversion - they love that it's free, love TortoiseSVN, love that we can segregate access to various parts of the repository. We roll out this week with it. Although I knew nothing about the product on day one, I'm now quite comfortable with it and everyone is actually excited about bringing it online. Without even seeing it in action yet, my management is already expecting to use it for many more projects.
Oh, and we technically only have one developer. We still need it.
I wholeheartedly agree with keeping your own SVN repository on your desktop (make sure you back up!) just to keep things sane, if the boss won't allow it to actually be deployed and used. This can also be used to bolster your case with the boss and demonstrate A) what it does and B) where the benefits are. But do not use it to point out "see, this is where you checked in the code that broke everything" because he'll see that he can be held accountable for his screw-ups, which is something he's been avoiding thus far if he's not even communicating changes to the code to the primary developer.
I donated to the SA as well back in September, because the timing was just about perfect. I needed to unload a car in a hurry that wasn't worth selling, and they obviously had a lot of work going on that needed funding. I didn't want to give to the Red Cross given various bad experiences friends have had with them firsthand. I tried the National Kidney Foundation, they wanted me to pay them to take the car away.
So I called the SA. He said "well, I couldn't get anyone out there to pick it up till tomorrow, is that a problem?" And I was expecting a couple days to get them to haul it away! The car worked, for the most part (it used oil, the a/c was dead, and the washer fluid didn't squirt - but it carried me 140 miles/day on my commute without much complaint) - given that there were several Katrina-affected families coming to our area, I was hoping that they could give it to one of them. It wasn't a phenomenal car, but if it gets someone from point A to point B for a few months so they can work, it's a win. Or, they may just sell it for scrap.
Either way, it was mutually beneficial - I unloaded the car in a hurry, they got something of value that can help them out.
Unless Gallery 2 uses a database back-end, skip it and use Coppermine. Gallery bogs down once you get a lot of images into the system as it's all flat-file data storage. Coppermine is a similar application from the user perspective, but uses MySQL as a back-end and actually allows you to associate keywords with images.
Every time I've gotten checks like that, they've required activation by me making a phone call, just like a new credit card.
Last time I tried to use them, the credit card company F'd up and only activated 1 of the checks, not all 4, which became a pain and embarassment when I tried to use another at a retail store.
Tollbooth operators are not law enforcement officers. For them to issue tickets, they'd need to be trained appropriately and their standing in the world significantly upgraded. I'd wager many wouldn't even qualify.
Not only are these tags traceable to you, they are connected to your credit card, which is auto-debited for tolls.
You are not required to tie the E-ZPass account to a credit card. You can have them bill you monthly. Even if you do tie the account to a CC, you aren't debited for the toll amount every time you pass through. You put $25 or $35 on account with E-ZPass, and the amount is debited from that. When you reach $10, your CC is billed that $25 or $35 again. I'm sure they make a ton of money on the interest/investment on this money.
Currently they are not being used to auto-ticket speeders (you wouldn't even need to use 'sophisticated' math to figure that one out),
In NY, last I checked, an officer must first observe you, think that you are speeding, then verify that you are via radar gun or similar. A location for the offense is also required - how would they know at what point you were speeding? In addition, the on/off ramps are long enough (again, this is my experience in NY) that anything but a really blatant offense, like 10+ MPH over the limit, will be negated by the slowdown at the entry & exit. Not to mention what happens to your average speed when you sit in line for 5 minutes at the toll plaza. So far, they can't legally issue a ticket based on E-ZPass data.
is to change employers. After several years of 0% or paltry raises, I am leaving my current employer this week and going elsewhere, with a larger raise (percentage wise) than I have seen outside of getting a promotion at my current job.
Raises are tied to performance, but performance appraisals have to fit a bell curve so even if you did great, your rating becomes mediocre. Raises are also keyed to where you are in the current salary range for your job. I went from bottom quarter up to bottom third, but was expecting far more after the very successful project I spent the first half of last year on.
I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this thing. I created a del.icio.us acocunt. I installed it. I'm using it, I can browse just like with any other browser.
I "imported" my IE bookmarks. But I can't find them. NONE of them. Where did they go? I imported my Firefox bookmarks (had to export to Opera, then import from Opera, I can't import direct from Firefox?). But again, I can't find them.
So far, not terribly impressed simply because I can't find the stuff I just imported.
Something you are (a fingerprint, an iris scan) is strong because you are unique, and it's a part of you. You never lose it
People who have lost all or part of a finger (or hand or arm) might disagree with this. If I lose the fingerprint that identifies me to the bank, what do I do if I can't get to the bank to be re-verified?
How many holding/clipping penalties do referees miss?
The ones that actually affect the outcome of the play, or ones that happen 15 yards from the ball and have no bearing at all on the offense making forward progress?
Several people have already mentioned MS and Lotus solutions, as well as running their own internal Jabber server. So I won't rehash all that.
However, what I haven't seen here yet is mention of logging. We used to use Sametime heavily in my current company. We got real work done with it, communications within the company got much better, and certain tasks got much easier. But then it was all taken away.
See, we're a public company and every electronic communication must be recorded, logged, and stored for a certain amount of time. I can't speak for other IM systems, but Sametime has no such capability out of the box. So rather then spend the money on a 3rd party product (assuming they even sought one out), they just shut the system off entirely.
The books are great - I've been reading some of the same books mentioned in this discussion. But without applying the things you learn from them, they're almost useless.
Read the books, write lots of code. They go hand in hand.
Slashdot Mirror
Even more inconsistent - on my home PC, I can't use GMail with my Firefox installation (been a problem for a long time, just can't get past their "loading" message), yet PortableFirefox on my USB stick works fine. I think they're the same AdBlock, same filters.
Or for auditing Sarbanes-Oxley. I have to be able to reconcile every change made to my system. Yes, we keep a paper trail, but being able to go back to the code and point at the exact change, exact date & time and who committed it for the auditors is a big deal. And a lot easier than sifting through binder upon binder of paper.
When did the OP ("Tim") ever say it was one of his scripts? It's reasonable that it was a script another customer had put out there and the OP was collateral damage. Which makes it all even more ludicrous. But not something the OP could have ever controlled.
NY (ok, CA's emissions standards) has even made it harder for light and medium trucks. The Jeep Liberty CRD (diesel) is classified by the government not as a passenger car but an SUV, and still isn't available in NY or CA. When Dodge came out with its higher-output Cummins diesels in their 3/4- and 1-ton pickups (these are vehicles which, if gas-powered, don't even require EPA estimates on the window sticker due to size/weight), it was almost a full model year before CA-emissions states were able to purchase them.
Then it's a shortened 3/4 ton Suburban chassis (and since a Suburban is just a long Tahoe, they're basically the same).
My "serious" comment was that while the H1 Alpha isn't up to military spec, it's the same platform and a hell of a lot more substantial than an H2 and there's really no comparing the two. H2s break in mild off-road use. A lot.
A Hummer H2 has no relation to the military Hummer, except name and styling cues. The Hummer H2 is just a glorified Chevy Tahoe SUV on a 3/4 ton chassis. The H1 "Alpha" is based on the actual military Hummer and while not as robust as a military-spec model, it's still a serious piece of hardware.
Many shops/lone coders/projects operate w/o version control simply out of ignorance - they just don't know that it's out there, or don't see an application for it in their process. Others are just plain intimidated by it.
If you've used version control for as long as you remember, of course you'll see the need and benefit. To someone who's never used it, they need to see WHY they should use it. The introductory chapter from any book on version control should help quite a bit here (I really like Practical Version Control Using Subversion for this). But I don't think the boss in question is the type who'll read it and internalize.
I'm very lucky that my new job (been there 2 months now) asked me about a week into working there "we need you to give us a recommendation on source control software." It was really driven by Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, but I was more than happy to get that assignment. I had set up Visual SourceSafe at my last job about 6 years ago because another group was forcing us to get "in line" with the mainframe's version-controlled world and the tool they wanted us to use sucked ass for our application. VSS sucked, but it sucked less than the version of PVCS we were being pushed into and it sucked a lot less than having nothing at all. Since it was an MS shop, VSS was pretty much the only sane choice in 1999.
I was able to bypass VSS for this job and went straight to Subversion - they love that it's free, love TortoiseSVN, love that we can segregate access to various parts of the repository. We roll out this week with it. Although I knew nothing about the product on day one, I'm now quite comfortable with it and everyone is actually excited about bringing it online. Without even seeing it in action yet, my management is already expecting to use it for many more projects.
Oh, and we technically only have one developer. We still need it.
I wholeheartedly agree with keeping your own SVN repository on your desktop (make sure you back up!) just to keep things sane, if the boss won't allow it to actually be deployed and used. This can also be used to bolster your case with the boss and demonstrate A) what it does and B) where the benefits are. But do not use it to point out "see, this is where you checked in the code that broke everything" because he'll see that he can be held accountable for his screw-ups, which is something he's been avoiding thus far if he's not even communicating changes to the code to the primary developer.
I donated to the SA as well back in September, because the timing was just about perfect. I needed to unload a car in a hurry that wasn't worth selling, and they obviously had a lot of work going on that needed funding. I didn't want to give to the Red Cross given various bad experiences friends have had with them firsthand. I tried the National Kidney Foundation, they wanted me to pay them to take the car away.
So I called the SA. He said "well, I couldn't get anyone out there to pick it up till tomorrow, is that a problem?" And I was expecting a couple days to get them to haul it away! The car worked, for the most part (it used oil, the a/c was dead, and the washer fluid didn't squirt - but it carried me 140 miles/day on my commute without much complaint) - given that there were several Katrina-affected families coming to our area, I was hoping that they could give it to one of them. It wasn't a phenomenal car, but if it gets someone from point A to point B for a few months so they can work, it's a win. Or, they may just sell it for scrap.
Either way, it was mutually beneficial - I unloaded the car in a hurry, they got something of value that can help them out.
There's no such thing as bad press, as long as they spell your name right.
Unless Gallery 2 uses a database back-end, skip it and use Coppermine. Gallery bogs down once you get a lot of images into the system as it's all flat-file data storage. Coppermine is a similar application from the user perspective, but uses MySQL as a back-end and actually allows you to associate keywords with images.
"Top 10" based on number of rentals. How about "Top 10" based on quality. Notice none of those movies are more than 5 years old.
Every time I've gotten checks like that, they've required activation by me making a phone call, just like a new credit card.
Last time I tried to use them, the credit card company F'd up and only activated 1 of the checks, not all 4, which became a pain and embarassment when I tried to use another at a retail store.
Tollbooth operators are not law enforcement officers. For them to issue tickets, they'd need to be trained appropriately and their standing in the world significantly upgraded. I'd wager many wouldn't even qualify.
is to change employers. After several years of 0% or paltry raises, I am leaving my current employer this week and going elsewhere, with a larger raise (percentage wise) than I have seen outside of getting a promotion at my current job.
Raises are tied to performance, but performance appraisals have to fit a bell curve so even if you did great, your rating becomes mediocre. Raises are also keyed to where you are in the current salary range for your job. I went from bottom quarter up to bottom third, but was expecting far more after the very successful project I spent the first half of last year on.
I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this thing. I created a del.icio.us acocunt. I installed it. I'm using it, I can browse just like with any other browser.
I "imported" my IE bookmarks. But I can't find them. NONE of them. Where did they go? I imported my Firefox bookmarks (had to export to Opera, then import from Opera, I can't import direct from Firefox?). But again, I can't find them.
So far, not terribly impressed simply because I can't find the stuff I just imported.
He didn't specify what timezone he lives in. He could very well have woken up at a "reasonable" hour when it was 1 PM where the announcement was made.
Or, he could work a late/night shift and sleeps till Noon because he's at work till 3 AM.
Professional sports are not a game, they're business first and foremost.
Several people have already mentioned MS and Lotus solutions, as well as running their own internal Jabber server. So I won't rehash all that.
However, what I haven't seen here yet is mention of logging. We used to use Sametime heavily in my current company. We got real work done with it, communications within the company got much better, and certain tasks got much easier. But then it was all taken away.
See, we're a public company and every electronic communication must be recorded, logged, and stored for a certain amount of time. I can't speak for other IM systems, but Sametime has no such capability out of the box. So rather then spend the money on a 3rd party product (assuming they even sought one out), they just shut the system off entirely.
"You will see a paperless bathroom before a paperless office."
In the several years since he said that, I think our paper usage has been increasing significantly.
You can charge money and still be open source.
The books are great - I've been reading some of the same books mentioned in this discussion. But without applying the things you learn from them, they're almost useless.
Read the books, write lots of code. They go hand in hand.