A call to save money is a call to become more efficient, to use your money more wisely.
That has nothing to do with Socialism, as a matter of fact capitalism assumes that you will always look for the better deal, but this self interest is distorted by the monopolistic nature of the computing market.
If anything choosing anything but MS software is a service to the capitlist way of living.
I have never found a public school anywhere in the world that could buy whatever they needed.
They had to mind the pennies and often have to organize events to obtain money from charitable people.
And I am talking about the UK, the 4th biggest economy in the world, not a 3rd world backwater place, I have lived close to 2 primary schools and they often have "fairs" and car boot sales in order to raise money.
Why the children, their parents and the teachers don't know about the ethics of the company whose software they are using?
It is all great and good to use the best tool for the job, but if that tool is made by somebody I find distasteful to make business with I will change to another tool.
Talk about ethics is sorely lacking in all this debate about the benefits of using MS's software.
This lame excuse that users have to fuck around with Linux to make it work is a fantasy.
Last year saw around a dozen machines (maybe more) that come with Linux preinstalled, and frankly Ubuntu can be installed by somebody non technical without any issues (unless you can't tell your time zone, your own language or answer some other mind numbingly challenging questions like those).
People saying Sun does not have expertise writing user friendly GUIs don't know what they are talking about.
There is not such a thing as an user friendly GUI, what we have is commonly used GUIs, being popular means people have less reluctance to use something, no matter how hideous or complicated it is.
Sun uses GNOME in Open Solaris which is a modern, flexible, usable GUI. There is no reason for a computing literate person to be unable to use it.
If you have been using something else for years then this will not seem "user friendly", if this is your first experience with a desktop environment you could not care less and will use Open Solaris productively.
These conclusions are pretty much akin to astrology, but because you have invested time and money into them then now you have an emotional attachment to this dreadful procedures that don't allow you to see them for what they are: a big scam.
Take the results for any of your employees, apply them to anybody else. How accurate they are? You will be surprised to find that any conclusions describe pretty "accurately" most of the people most of the time. Same technique used by astrologers and other snake oil pedlars.
Look at economists, they have been trying to do exactly the same and they have failed, miserably, as recent events probe. Trying to define people behaviour by statistics is not a rational thing to try to do.
The problem with these "tests" is that they forget that individuals are not passive subjects of study, but dynamic agents that can react to the very test that is been applied to them. Any test of this kind becomes obsolete pretty much as soon as somebody that understand what such a test is all about. The behaviour that is trying to be be observed changes at that very same moment, reason for which any results are completely and utterly pointless.
You success hiring people may have more to do to you playing close attention to the skills of the people and to real, personal interaction during interviews.
The current US government, some one that has hardly shown any environmentalist credentials, put the polar bear in hte list of threatened species due to the demonstrably reducing of the sea ice that forms their habitat.
There is also plenty of evidence that in at least on third of the known populations there are clear sing of decline, and even anecdotal evidence provided by indigenous people (the spotting of bears in land) may mean not that populations are increasing, but rather that the bears have to stay inland because they can't go anywhere else.
The reduction of sea ice is a fact, not fiction. It is a well known correlation that the destruction of the habitat of species cause species extinction. The polar bear's habitat is the sea ice during the winter, it is simply common sense (which is being slowly being backed up by research findings) that if the bear's environment suffers, the bear is bound to suffer.
This has nothing to do with sensationalist press or rumours, legal procedures are being followed that classifies the bear as a threatened species based on the factual evidence that we have.
OK, that's not fair to Levan. In his letter, he cites another 400-er: Tom Segalstad, "a professor and head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and formerly an expert reviewer with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
I don't have desktop access to ISI, so I can't pull Andy's trick. But as near as I can tell, Segalstad has published a grand total of one paper in the peer-reviewed literature on climate change: a rather narrow critique published in 1992 of the record of carbon trapped in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. Subsequent research has shown Segalstad and his co-author on that paper to be wrong.
I used to work with people in the oil industry: geologists, geophysicists and similar beasts.
They use highly specialized applications, and by sitting with them and understanding the basics of what they were doing I could do some basic tasks without having any formal training in the field.
That is what the other poster was talking about: if it is doable in a computer we are more likely to catch some of the stuff as is done in other fields of expertise.
I always had the highest IQ on all the places I have worked:-P
In all seriousness people that can go through all the reasoning necessary to understand computing (languages, complex protocols, complicated topologies of all kinds, logical thinking and problem solving) can apply these skills to other fields (financing for example, I am pretty much insulated from the current crisis because I used my problem solving skills instead of following the herd).
What you say regarding becoming heroes is true: take your work and yourself too seriously and you will enter a world of suffering.
We all need to understand some basic things: you are replaceable, the world will not end if you don't fix that problem now.
Very often they are blissfully unaware about real world restrictions (you know, little things like bandwidth, CPU cycles in a multitasking system, RAM and other such trivialities) .
Devs-IT is a partnership in which the IT people deal with the resources and provides them for the Devs wizardry. None is above each other, they are equal partners in trying to provide solutions based on efficient use of computing resources.
If you are the only support person you simply should say no to be available 24x7 as a matter of principle, from there you cold negotiate adequate compensation for being called out with a suitable rest period after such an episode.
You don't have to accept to be exploited, not in free countries any way, and even in not so free ones I saw guys standing up for their rights in the workplace (Vietnam if you need further reference) and winning better working conditions for it.
In Europe we have directives that limit the amount of hours you can work.
Also contracts are worded differently. Here in the UK the amount of hours one is expected to work is spelled out, the understanding is that you will work extra when needed, but if the need becomes routine then you can claim even unjustified dismissal given the insane conditions of work, but I found even in place where workers had little protection you just have to be your own man and say no, in most cases this sorts out the situation.
even the worst statistics claim that unemployment in rich countries is around 10%
That means most people have a job and will do so in the foreseeable future.
Unless our governments commit a monumental clusterfuck (not entirely improbable I know, but one live in hope) this should be the situation for a couple of years.
Other countries (Germany) have gone through all that and people was not starving on the streets.
I will not give you a team leadership, senior developer or similar position out of school, it is that simple.
You have to earn your stripes now, you may have to earn them in many places, but aiming high when you don't have the skill to even get there is foolish.
Here in the UK we have the most photographers per capita in the EU, the fastest growing profession is hair dressing.
Honestly, youngsters have no time or inclination for topic that require a background on hard science or technology, they prefer to go for softer topics.
Don't get me wrong, it is not easy to be a good photographer, but it is easier to be a run of the mill one when compared to be a run of the mill SysAdmin, programmer or DBA.
I have lots of experience with blue chip companies, I have taken a brake since being made redundant some months ago.
I get calls and emails every other day with possible offers of employment. I know they are for real because companies' names are named, salaries and benefits mentioned, agencies in fishing expeditions for CVs would not provide this information.
Friends and colleagues with similar expertise found jobs when they were ready to go back to work without much problem ( a bit more problem than before, the market is clearly less favourable, but for experienced IT people it seems to be holding OK).
In the other hand relatively new people (and here I have to remark I am talking from the point of view of somebody in the UK) are really struggling. They have to deal not only with all the pool of old timers out there that have more expertise and a longer track record, but also with the guys in locations like India, Mexico and Singapore, people over there are very well educated (I am Mexican, my education has never let me down) and willing to work for far less (and no, they are not in sweatshops necessarily, in Mexico employees are heavily protected against redundancies, so in theory that should make them more expensive, but the discrepancy in life expenses makes them very competitive, I know of 2 big companies here in the UK that have relocated part of their operations to Mexico).
So if you are at the top of your field you should be OK, if you are trying to gain a new position you will need to be very shrewd in order to attain it now.
That is the beauty of computing, you can build expertise from the comfort of your bedroom.
I had interviewed people with verifiable industry experience that were no better than chaps that learned their stuff in their free time in an old computer at home.
Clearly there are fields and topics you can learn only working in a big company (clustering, high availability, SAN storage, etc) but for many positions tinkering at home may give you enough knowledge to put confidently the foot in a door that otherwise would have not open to you.
Bar need (I come from a country where University education is almost free) if you are a student your work should be to study. Anything else is an unwanted distraction.
Once you have graduated you will have plenty of time to start from the bottom, but you will have learned all the tools that you need to have a successful career.
Plenty of friends that thought were advancing their prospects by doing menial IT work eventually could not complete their education (work trumps school work any time). They remained in low level positions while people that obtained good degree grades went to obtain good jobs with better prospects.
This is not a universal rule of course, but it stands to reason to think a good education is not worth having.
Slashdot Mirror
We are supposed to worry about issues that matter to us.
Your suggestion would be in place if we were in a website discussing fashion, sports or a complete non related issue.
IT in schools is one of the most important topics we can worry about in this website.
A call to save money is a call to become more efficient, to use your money more wisely.
That has nothing to do with Socialism, as a matter of fact capitalism assumes that you will always look for the better deal, but this self interest is distorted by the monopolistic nature of the computing market.
If anything choosing anything but MS software is a service to the capitlist way of living.
I have never found a public school anywhere in the world that could buy whatever they needed.
They had to mind the pennies and often have to organize events to obtain money from charitable people.
And I am talking about the UK, the 4th biggest economy in the world, not a 3rd world backwater place, I have lived close to 2 primary schools and they often have "fairs" and car boot sales in order to raise money.
Why the children, their parents and the teachers don't know about the ethics of the company whose software they are using?
It is all great and good to use the best tool for the job, but if that tool is made by somebody I find distasteful to make business with I will change to another tool.
Talk about ethics is sorely lacking in all this debate about the benefits of using MS's software.
... anybody can.
This lame excuse that users have to fuck around with Linux to make it work is a fantasy.
Last year saw around a dozen machines (maybe more) that come with Linux preinstalled, and frankly Ubuntu can be installed by somebody non technical without any issues (unless you can't tell your time zone, your own language or answer some other mind numbingly challenging questions like those).
What awesome things do they do?
Names please.
I am tired of hearing this but names are never offered.
... should be moderated as troll.
But price is the oil of the inertia machine.
People saying Sun does not have expertise writing user friendly GUIs don't know what they are talking about.
There is not such a thing as an user friendly GUI, what we have is commonly used GUIs, being popular means people have less reluctance to use something, no matter how hideous or complicated it is.
Sun uses GNOME in Open Solaris which is a modern, flexible, usable GUI. There is no reason for a computing literate person to be unable to use it.
If you have been using something else for years then this will not seem "user friendly", if this is your first experience with a desktop environment you could not care less and will use Open Solaris productively.
These conclusions are pretty much akin to astrology, but because you have invested time and money into them then now you have an emotional attachment to this dreadful procedures that don't allow you to see them for what they are: a big scam.
Take the results for any of your employees, apply them to anybody else. How accurate they are? You will be surprised to find that any conclusions describe pretty "accurately" most of the people most of the time. Same technique used by astrologers and other snake oil pedlars.
Look at economists, they have been trying to do exactly the same and they have failed, miserably, as recent events probe. Trying to define people behaviour by statistics is not a rational thing to try to do.
The problem with these "tests" is that they forget that individuals are not passive subjects of study, but dynamic agents that can react to the very test that is been applied to them. Any test of this kind becomes obsolete pretty much as soon as somebody that understand what such a test is all about. The behaviour that is trying to be be observed changes at that very same moment, reason for which any results are completely and utterly pointless.
You success hiring people may have more to do to you playing close attention to the skills of the people and to real, personal interaction during interviews.
The current US government, some one that has hardly shown any environmentalist credentials, put the polar bear in hte list of threatened species due to the demonstrably reducing of the sea ice that forms their habitat.
There is also plenty of evidence that in at least on third of the known populations there are clear sing of decline, and even anecdotal evidence provided by indigenous people (the spotting of bears in land) may mean not that populations are increasing, but rather that the bears have to stay inland because they can't go anywhere else.
The reduction of sea ice is a fact, not fiction. It is a well known correlation that the destruction of the habitat of species cause species extinction. The polar bear's habitat is the sea ice during the winter, it is simply common sense (which is being slowly being backed up by research findings) that if the bear's environment suffers, the bear is bound to suffer.
This has nothing to do with sensationalist press or rumours, legal procedures are being followed that classifies the bear as a threatened species based on the factual evidence that we have.
From another article I found:
Quote
OK, that's not fair to Levan. In his letter, he cites another 400-er: Tom Segalstad, "a professor and head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and formerly an expert reviewer with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
I don't have desktop access to ISI, so I can't pull Andy's trick. But as near as I can tell, Segalstad has published a grand total of one paper in the peer-reviewed literature on climate change: a rather narrow critique published in 1992 of the record of carbon trapped in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. Subsequent research has shown Segalstad and his co-author on that paper to be wrong.
Unquote
So much for your "expert".
I used to work with people in the oil industry: geologists, geophysicists and similar beasts.
They use highly specialized applications, and by sitting with them and understanding the basics of what they were doing I could do some basic tasks without having any formal training in the field.
That is what the other poster was talking about: if it is doable in a computer we are more likely to catch some of the stuff as is done in other fields of expertise.
I always had the highest IQ on all the places I have worked :-P
In all seriousness people that can go through all the reasoning necessary to understand computing (languages, complex protocols, complicated topologies of all kinds, logical thinking and problem solving) can apply these skills to other fields (financing for example, I am pretty much insulated from the current crisis because I used my problem solving skills instead of following the herd).
What you say regarding becoming heroes is true: take your work and yourself too seriously and you will enter a world of suffering.
We all need to understand some basic things: you are replaceable, the world will not end if you don't fix that problem now.
Very often they are blissfully unaware about real world restrictions (you know, little things like bandwidth, CPU cycles in a multitasking system, RAM and other such trivialities) .
Devs-IT is a partnership in which the IT people deal with the resources and provides them for the Devs wizardry. None is above each other, they are equal partners in trying to provide solutions based on efficient use of computing resources.
Everybody can say no, all this "geeks are emotionl idiots" nonsense is most idiotic.
You have to judge if it is reasonable to do so.
If you are the only support person you simply should say no to be available 24x7 as a matter of principle, from there you cold negotiate adequate compensation for being called out with a suitable rest period after such an episode.
You don't have to accept to be exploited, not in free countries any way, and even in not so free ones I saw guys standing up for their rights in the workplace (Vietnam if you need further reference) and winning better working conditions for it.
In Europe we have directives that limit the amount of hours you can work.
Also contracts are worded differently. Here in the UK the amount of hours one is expected to work is spelled out, the understanding is that you will work extra when needed, but if the need becomes routine then you can claim even unjustified dismissal given the insane conditions of work, but I found even in place where workers had little protection you just have to be your own man and say no, in most cases this sorts out the situation.
It is up to you to stop long hours.
Just say "no" or "how much do I get per extra hour?"
That will keep in line 99% of unreasonable bosses ...
even the worst statistics claim that unemployment in rich countries is around 10%
That means most people have a job and will do so in the foreseeable future.
Unless our governments commit a monumental clusterfuck (not entirely improbable I know, but one live in hope) this should be the situation for a couple of years.
Other countries (Germany) have gone through all that and people was not starving on the streets.
I will not give you a team leadership, senior developer or similar position out of school, it is that simple.
You have to earn your stripes now, you may have to earn them in many places, but aiming high when you don't have the skill to even get there is foolish.
Ask any mountain climber for a useful analogy.
Here in the UK we have the most photographers per capita in the EU, the fastest growing profession is hair dressing.
Honestly, youngsters have no time or inclination for topic that require a background on hard science or technology, they prefer to go for softer topics.
Don't get me wrong, it is not easy to be a good photographer, but it is easier to be a run of the mill one when compared to be a run of the mill SysAdmin, programmer or DBA.
I have lots of experience with blue chip companies, I have taken a brake since being made redundant some months ago.
I get calls and emails every other day with possible offers of employment. I know they are for real because companies' names are named, salaries and benefits mentioned, agencies in fishing expeditions for CVs would not provide this information.
Friends and colleagues with similar expertise found jobs when they were ready to go back to work without much problem ( a bit more problem than before, the market is clearly less favourable, but for experienced IT people it seems to be holding OK).
In the other hand relatively new people (and here I have to remark I am talking from the point of view of somebody in the UK) are really struggling. They have to deal not only with all the pool of old timers out there that have more expertise and a longer track record, but also with the guys in locations like India, Mexico and Singapore, people over there are very well educated (I am Mexican, my education has never let me down) and willing to work for far less (and no, they are not in sweatshops necessarily, in Mexico employees are heavily protected against redundancies, so in theory that should make them more expensive, but the discrepancy in life expenses makes them very competitive, I know of 2 big companies here in the UK that have relocated part of their operations to Mexico).
So if you are at the top of your field you should be OK, if you are trying to gain a new position you will need to be very shrewd in order to attain it now.
That is the beauty of computing, you can build expertise from the comfort of your bedroom.
I had interviewed people with verifiable industry experience that were no better than chaps that learned their stuff in their free time in an old computer at home.
Clearly there are fields and topics you can learn only working in a big company (clustering, high availability, SAN storage, etc) but for many positions tinkering at home may give you enough knowledge to put confidently the foot in a door that otherwise would have not open to you.
for a person to work while they were in school.
Bar need (I come from a country where University education is almost free) if you are a student your work should be to study. Anything else is an unwanted distraction.
Once you have graduated you will have plenty of time to start from the bottom, but you will have learned all the tools that you need to have a successful career.
Plenty of friends that thought were advancing their prospects by doing menial IT work eventually could not complete their education (work trumps school work any time). They remained in low level positions while people that obtained good degree grades went to obtain good jobs with better prospects.
This is not a universal rule of course, but it stands to reason to think a good education is not worth having.