I just went through this with a friend whose ex-husband did a "death by hibachi" routine. There were 2 young children involved, no death/burial financial issues to resolve. There was no question about it being a suicide, since it is difficult to rent a cargo van and light a BBQ grill inside it after you seal it up. There were questions about whether there were other accounts or information on his computer.
My agreement with her was that I would look through the system and find everything that I could. One condition: Unless it was absolutely necessary I would not share the info with her. I would not share any personal information such as journaling or email, and only if it was legally beneficial or financially necessary would I tell her. She agreed.
As it ended up, all I found were a lot of word docs ranting and raving in a manner consistent to a bi-polar that had stopped taking his meds and started taking a lot of other crap that was non-prescription. None of the info was going to be of any positive result. Of all the crap, a single picture of he and his son taken a few days prior to his death was all that was turned over.
After doing a shred and reformat, I loaded it with XP Pro, since it had Vista on it. After fighting with the non-XP friendly video (Compaq/NVidia), I gave the system back for the kids to use.
Unless you find anything that is of a certain positive result, nothing is worth recovering. If you don't have the relationship and agreement, don't get involved.
I've been looking at these from one of my suppliers, it comes with Linux loaded and "supports XP". There is also a touchscreen adaptation listed by a number of vendors on eBay.
Wasn't there a startup sound file for the Macs, circa 199x, that mimicked the sound of a floppy spooling up and seeking? Whir, clik clik...
Speaking of noises, I really miss that old 56k modem handshake screech. Lets hear a DSL modem do that.
I loaded Firefox and Thunderbird on my old Toshiba Libretto, PI@90 with 32M under Win98. PCMCIA Wireless Lan and it ran just fine. Slow to load (of course), but what's new about that?
You realize that telling kids to "grow up" is also telling them to "take responsibility for their actions". Now that is just a pretty damn UN-American concept. Even the President and Congress don't have to take responsibility for their actions. ie. "Umm, I don't recall that incident, let me get back to you." "I never said Iraq was connected to 9/11, the American people misunderstood"
I have 2 x 15 year olds, if they go over their cell phone limits and it comes out of their lunch money... Talk/SMS or eat.
So you've worked your magic, and it all goes great, they should be happy as a DIMM in a gold contacted socket. Right?
We should also consider/acknowledge the other big issue here: the "Ethics of being a Client". I am certain that I am not the only one who has experienced a client who finds it easier (read: more economical) to simply tell you to "go screw", "uh, we are having cash flow problems...", etc. when the bill is due than to pay. They can always find another consultant to take your place, thus repeating the process. I'm sure that there are as many variations on this theme as there are consultants who have experienced it.
Clients like this make me question whether being ethical in my business practices is economically "worth" it. Especially since proactively \defending\ yourself can readily wind you up in "unethical" territory.
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I just went through this with a friend whose ex-husband did a "death by hibachi" routine. There were 2 young children involved, no death/burial financial issues to resolve. There was no question about it being a suicide, since it is difficult to rent a cargo van and light a BBQ grill inside it after you seal it up. There were questions about whether there were other accounts or information on his computer.
My agreement with her was that I would look through the system and find everything that I could. One condition: Unless it was absolutely necessary I would not share the info with her. I would not share any personal information such as journaling or email, and only if it was legally beneficial or financially necessary would I tell her. She agreed.
As it ended up, all I found were a lot of word docs ranting and raving in a manner consistent to a bi-polar that had stopped taking his meds and started taking a lot of other crap that was non-prescription. None of the info was going to be of any positive result. Of all the crap, a single picture of he and his son taken a few days prior to his death was all that was turned over.
After doing a shred and reformat, I loaded it with XP Pro, since it had Vista on it. After fighting with the non-XP friendly video (Compaq/NVidia), I gave the system back for the kids to use.
Unless you find anything that is of a certain positive result, nothing is worth recovering. If you don't have the relationship and agreement, don't get involved.
$400 - $500 Billion is too expensive for a long term space project?
Then why the hell is spending that much in Iraq acceptable for a long term clusterfuck?
Someone has their priorities screwed up.
I've been looking at these from one of my suppliers, it comes with Linux loaded and "supports XP". There is also a touchscreen adaptation listed by a number of vendors on eBay.
Agreed with the XP constant activity. I keep a laptop on the floor next to the bed, and it is always crunching _something_ around and making a racket.
Fortunately, my wife's snoring drowns it out every so often.
Wasn't there a startup sound file for the Macs, circa 199x, that mimicked the sound of a floppy spooling up and seeking? Whir, clik clik...
Speaking of noises, I really miss that old 56k modem handshake screech. Lets hear a DSL modem do that.
http://www.vorkt.com/
I loaded Firefox and Thunderbird on my old Toshiba Libretto, PI@90 with 32M under Win98. PCMCIA Wireless Lan and it ran just fine. Slow to load (of course), but what's new about that?
You realize that telling kids to "grow up" is also telling them to "take responsibility for their actions". Now that is just a pretty damn UN-American concept. Even the President and Congress don't have to take responsibility for their actions. ie. "Umm, I don't recall that incident, let me get back to you." "I never said Iraq was connected to 9/11, the American people misunderstood"
I have 2 x 15 year olds, if they go over their cell phone limits and it comes out of their lunch money... Talk/SMS or eat.
Beats pissing on the 3rd rail...
-ScottL
So you've worked your magic, and it all goes great, they should be happy as a DIMM in a gold contacted socket. Right?
We should also consider/acknowledge the other big issue here: the "Ethics of being a Client". I am certain that I am not the only one who has experienced a client who finds it easier (read: more economical) to simply tell you to "go screw", "uh, we are having cash flow problems...", etc. when the bill is due than to pay. They can always find another consultant to take your place, thus repeating the process. I'm sure that there are as many variations on this theme as there are consultants who have experienced it.
Clients like this make me question whether being ethical in my business practices is economically "worth" it. Especially since proactively \defending\ yourself can readily wind you up in "unethical" territory.