I am taking a course on digital film making, yesterday one of my teachers (who has produced and directed successful shorts and whose day job is in a film production company) was trying to show us one of her films in order to illustrate some points.
He spend the best part of half an hour to figure out how to play a DVD in a Windows machine. The reason? She is an Apple user. Things that to most people in the classroom appeared to be "natural" (i.e. they have only used Windows ever) were a complete nightmare for the Apple user.
If your crew is completely computer illiterate (unlikely) use Linux.
I don't care what all other people will tell you, because they are simply wrong: the way Windows, Apple, or Linux do things is not natural, user friendly or in any objective way better than each other's, people simply become familiar with a tool and that means such tool will be the one "user friendly" to them.
If the tools you need exist in Linux (for what you mention they certainly do) use Linux and save money, a great commodity in the filming industry more often than not.
It is a testament to the inventiveness and dedication of some programmers that they actually make some Windows programs work in Linux, but frankly that is a cop out.
Linux has no shortcomings for not being Windows.
Linux is different and should be approached with a different mindset.
If your mindset is to ape your WIndows (or Apple) environment, then for bunnies sakes, spare yourself the pain and us your whining and stick to what works for you.
Those of us that have been working bot professionally and domestically with Linux for more than a decade now can't frankly be bothered anymore about the silly "year of the desktop" for Linux.
At 70 she is happily using Ubuntu, her first computer ever.
Anecdotal I know, but I think that test is frankly done and dusted.
Linux has now to convince the slightly more sophisticated user, the one that may want to find an application for specific purposes beyond the traditional office oriented ones.
No offence, but how would you react if somebody told you that your company is losing $10000000 *an hour* because something you are responsible for just broke?
There is no amount of PhDidgery that can teach you to deal with such a situation (unless you are really lucky, but it is rare that PhD and Masters students will be ever faced with such situations).
When people talk about companies prefering experience to academic qualifications this is the kind of things they refer to, not necessarily the technical or cutting edge aspects of any given field.
In good companies the IT people write the requirements and internal company policy grants HR a minor role in the hiring process, they have to adhere to the wishes of the respective department when looking for candidates.
In my anecdotal experience, field expertise triumphed education almost always.
Nowadays all movies need their action heroes to be 20 something, not because they are making daring artistic decisions, but because teenagers are the main cannon fodder of the movie industry.
This has led to illogical decisions like the one rightly lambasted by the other poster.
A masterpiece will not ask us to suspend disbelief to the point of stupidity, because that would be patronizing (you can patronize teenagers, they are normally stupid, not their fault, it is lack of experience, but you shouldn't do that with adults and old timers, they will see through your inane holes in the plot and call you to it, as the previous poster rightly did).
I was part of big projects in Mexico and at no point bribery was asked for, encouraged or existing.
The company where I worked did not countenance this, and everybody in the industry knew it.
Unsurprisingly we were very busy, our government clients knew we where trustworthy and were more comfortable dealing with us.
At the end it is your ethics, if you can't makes business without doing things that are immoral or illegal you simply excruciate yourself from such deals, nothing is forcing you to associate with corrupt people.
It may come as a surprise to many people that have never worked in a big corporation, but ethics are taken seriously, when individuals decide to ignore ethical guidelines more often than not the guilty party is disciplined, but in many cases you may not get to know about this.
In all the big companies where I have worked we received training about these topics, even if we were not actually facing costumers at all. These training was refreshed at least once a year, and this was for IT people, the business people actually had much more of this.
So do not blame companies willy-nilly, in many (I would say most) cases it is individuals who decide to use their priviledged positions to ignore clear cut company policies.
No matter if he is less efficient, lazier or less educated.
Consumers are citizens also btw, so by artificially paying higher salaries you are actually harming local consumers.
So which is it Keemosabe? You either harm workers or consumers (this is actually not true of course, by allowing immigration freely you increase your contributory tax base, immigrants will of course demand goods and services which create new jobs in the economy that were not there before. But if you want to keep goods and services artificially expensive in your country keep suggesting irrational solutions....)
A walk in the park in London, Paris or Berlin should be enough proof for that.
Just for starters there are no border controls between most EU states. Whatever you are, whenever you were born, your passport will never be checked when you cross a national border in most of Europe.
Talking as a Mexican, the place most difficult to enter is the US. I get a tourist visa on arrival to all signatory countries of the Schengen agreement, the UK and many other countries. Even Canada grants Mexicans tourist visas on arrival.
The paperwork for a visa to Vietnam was less complicated than one for the US.
Unsurprisingly I have not visited the land of the free for several years now, frankly I can't be bothered. Shame that my paisanos are not so lucky.
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I am taking a course on digital film making, yesterday one of my teachers (who has produced and directed successful shorts and whose day job is in a film production company) was trying to show us one of her films in order to illustrate some points.
He spend the best part of half an hour to figure out how to play a DVD in a Windows machine. The reason? She is an Apple user. Things that to most people in the classroom appeared to be "natural" (i.e. they have only used Windows ever) were a complete nightmare for the Apple user.
If your crew is completely computer illiterate (unlikely) use Linux.
I don't care what all other people will tell you, because they are simply wrong: the way Windows, Apple, or Linux do things is not natural, user friendly or in any objective way better than each other's, people simply become familiar with a tool and that means such tool will be the one "user friendly" to them.
If the tools you need exist in Linux (for what you mention they certainly do) use Linux and save money, a great commodity in the filming industry more often than not.
And you can give your weight to your GP either in kilograms or stones.
It is a feature.
It is a testament to the inventiveness and dedication of some programmers that they actually make some Windows programs work in Linux, but frankly that is a cop out.
Linux has no shortcomings for not being Windows.
Linux is different and should be approached with a different mindset.
If your mindset is to ape your WIndows (or Apple) environment, then for bunnies sakes, spare yourself the pain and us your whining and stick to what works for you.
Those of us that have been working bot professionally and domestically with Linux for more than a decade now can't frankly be bothered anymore about the silly "year of the desktop" for Linux.
In my case that was 10 years ago...
You want Linux to be Windows.
When you use Linux as Linux, with its limitations and its advantages, you realize that it is a more productive environment.
Ritualistic cannibalism pretty well documented in the Aztec Empire and other Mesoamerican cultures.
I will not even bother to google for it.
In Mexico we eat them, they are delicious (gusanos de maguey, for your reference).
Polar bears and grizzlies do interbreed.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/bear-hybrid-photo.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091498/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091498/
Windows Media Player does not play MP3 files by default and I believe you don;t have a CD/DVD burner out of the box.
Lets start from the point where the systems are configured equally for the most common tasks and see how systems fare from there.
But she is no technologist neither.
At 70 she is happily using Ubuntu, her first computer ever.
Anecdotal I know, but I think that test is frankly done and dusted.
Linux has now to convince the slightly more sophisticated user, the one that may want to find an application for specific purposes beyond the traditional office oriented ones.
Something that nobody seems to have mentioned is that you get a better perspective of the field once you get work experience.
Once you are an experienced professional then you can judge much better if a Masters will be of any use and which one would be the one to pursue.
No offence, but how would you react if somebody told you that your company is losing $10000000 *an hour* because something you are responsible for just broke?
There is no amount of PhDidgery that can teach you to deal with such a situation (unless you are really lucky, but it is rare that PhD and Masters students will be ever faced with such situations).
When people talk about companies prefering experience to academic qualifications this is the kind of things they refer to, not necessarily the technical or cutting edge aspects of any given field.
In good companies the IT people write the requirements and internal company policy grants HR a minor role in the hiring process, they have to adhere to the wishes of the respective department when looking for candidates.
In my anecdotal experience, field expertise triumphed education almost always.
Dear goodness ...
Nowadays all movies need their action heroes to be 20 something, not because they are making daring artistic decisions, but because teenagers are the main cannon fodder of the movie industry.
This has led to illogical decisions like the one rightly lambasted by the other poster.
A masterpiece will not ask us to suspend disbelief to the point of stupidity, because that would be patronizing (you can patronize teenagers, they are normally stupid, not their fault, it is lack of experience, but you shouldn't do that with adults and old timers, they will see through your inane holes in the plot and call you to it, as the previous poster rightly did).
They work very successfully in a Southern African country, and they haven't ever given a bribe.
They make this clear and that they will not work if they are asked one.
If people know you are not in the pull then they don't even try it.
I was part of big projects in Mexico and at no point bribery was asked for, encouraged or existing.
The company where I worked did not countenance this, and everybody in the industry knew it.
Unsurprisingly we were very busy, our government clients knew we where trustworthy and were more comfortable dealing with us.
At the end it is your ethics, if you can't makes business without doing things that are immoral or illegal you simply excruciate yourself from such deals, nothing is forcing you to associate with corrupt people.
How particulars decide to complete business deals is up to them.
The situation you describe is distasteful and perhaps immoral, but I doubt very much it would be considered illegal.
If either party was an elected representative then you would have a point, as it stands you simply look completely confused....
Every unethical person is doing it.
It may come as a surprise to many people that have never worked in a big corporation, but ethics are taken seriously, when individuals decide to ignore ethical guidelines more often than not the guilty party is disciplined, but in many cases you may not get to know about this.
In all the big companies where I have worked we received training about these topics, even if we were not actually facing costumers at all. These training was refreshed at least once a year, and this was for IT people, the business people actually had much more of this.
So do not blame companies willy-nilly, in many (I would say most) cases it is individuals who decide to use their priviledged positions to ignore clear cut company policies.
But would gladly pay taxes.
It is the stubbornness of US politicians and certain sectors of US society which makes this impossible.
There is not a single Mexican that would welcome such a thing.
No matter if he is less efficient, lazier or less educated.
Consumers are citizens also btw, so by artificially paying higher salaries you are actually harming local consumers.
So which is it Keemosabe? You either harm workers or consumers (this is actually not true of course, by allowing immigration freely you increase your contributory tax base, immigrants will of course demand goods and services which create new jobs in the economy that were not there before. But if you want to keep goods and services artificially expensive in your country keep suggesting irrational solutions ....)
Ask a clue from a country that is acting in a demonstrably racist way....
A walk in the park in London, Paris or Berlin should be enough proof for that.
Just for starters there are no border controls between most EU states. Whatever you are, whenever you were born, your passport will never be checked when you cross a national border in most of Europe.
Talking as a Mexican, the place most difficult to enter is the US. I get a tourist visa on arrival to all signatory countries of the Schengen agreement, the UK and many other countries. Even Canada grants Mexicans tourist visas on arrival.
The paperwork for a visa to Vietnam was less complicated than one for the US.
Unsurprisingly I have not visited the land of the free for several years now, frankly I can't be bothered. Shame that my paisanos are not so lucky.