Sorry to hear about your static - after about 40 or so they are the -only- way to level, IMO. Sure, you can do pickups all the way to 75, but you'll end up spending sooo much time LFP it's not funny. Even as a BLM or WHM (we have a 70WHM in my LS that has difficulty finding PTs except during JP prime-time).
Even with the static I'm in, we've had to make a "rule" that if 4 of us are on and ready, the other two get to play catch up. This past saturday we actually ended up levelling with only 3 - our BLM was on, but was falling asleep at his PC and told us to go ahead. 3 hours later - 10.2k xp and went from 42 to 44. Hoorah.
Actually, I'm pretty "in" to FFXI. Challenge? Good luck getting past level 12 (or so) solo without grouping. It -can- be done, but it's going to take you almost four times as long to get to 20 as it will if you party (the lone exception being them bastard BSTs). I've already seen several people come -back- to FFXI from EQ2 (and don't get me started on the folks -running- back from WoW), so I -do- have to question even it's level of challenge (or challenge vs. frustration) against FFXI. That said, -any- MMORPG that allows you to hit max level in under a month of playtime (and -definately- under a month of calendar time) isn't worth playing, IMO. It'd have to have an -immense- amount of endgame content to keep people interested for very long. And yes - even FFXI has a problem here. You can only farm the Gods so many times before they start getting boring (from what I hear - I'm but a lowly WHM44).
Eh. We all have different tastes, and FFXI also gives me an environment where I can learn/practice romanji Japanese:) If you a comparatively easy game - feel free to play WoW. You want a challenge with pretty eye candy (and EQ2 is fucking -gorgeous- if you have a beefy enough system) play EQ2. You want bleeding from your eyeballs challenge (and frustration), play FFXI. And above all - pick the game that you have the most fun playing, and don't flame those that disagree with you:)
6 in 1992...Christ...my baby sister is your age. In 1992 I was screwing around on my dad's new 486 and learning MS Windows 3.0 running on MS-DOS 5.0! I even got to upgrade it to MSDOS 6.0 (and later to 6.22) and I think I even did the upgrade to WFW3.11 *lol*
Anywho, I first started on a TI-99/4 (we even had the speech synthesizer!) when I was ~5 or so. It was -very- shortly after we moved to Boston in 1981. I distinctly remember an incident when a friend an I were screwing around, and I learned my first real curse-word: Fuck. It was hysterical, lemme tell ya:) My dad walked into the room almost -immediately- after I typed it. *snicker* Grounded from the thing for a month, and couldn't talk to my friend for even longer:( At the same time I was putzing around on my pretty cartridge based system, my grandfather had gotten a Commodore64 (and later a 128!) That was fun to play on when I visited for an extended period of time for Christmas and New Years in 1982/3ish. I miss that computer:(
Anyway - our next computer (that I recall) was a brand-spankin' new Tandy 1000 in 1984. Woo! After that the computers were basically a haze, since my dad seemed to be upgrading every couple of years or so. The first "PC" that -I- owned was an IBM PS/2. I think we got it when I was in middle school (1988/1989ish). After that was an orgy of upgrades, until I inherited my dad's computer in 1994 when I shipped off to college - my very own AMD 486DX-2 50MHz with 16MB of RAM and a 520MB HD! Of course, I'd been using it through-out High School to write papers, learn BASIC, etc on:) It was also later upgraded to 32MB of RAM that Christmas, and replaced the following summer with my AMD K5 (can you tell I've been an AMD user forever?) Early 1995 was when I first started using Linux (in fact, it was just about this time 10 years ago, now...) The rest, I guess you could say, is history.
With the exception of my handful of Dell rigs, and the cluster I inherited when I started here - everything I have now is AMD. That's a full 32node cluster, a 4-way, and a few other goodies.
This isn't -quite- true. If you manage to find an entry level job with a contractor (think PC tech at NARA - BTDT) and manage to stick around and move up the ranks, the odds of them getting you a clearance improve, since it may be necessary for a given promotion, and they may be unable to bring in an "outsider" for the position. I know of at least one case where a contractor -has- gone and done the entire process for a TS/Poly for employees being moved to a very specific contract. I have no reason to believe that this is exceedingly rare (uncommon, probably, but not rare as I think of the term). If you have the skillset, you -will- get jobs, regardless of clearance status, provided the contractor can put you to use while waiting on the clearance process. IF they can't - then yeah, yer hosed:)
That all said - the federal government ain't the only place to get work in the greater Washington/Baltimore area. There's a hell of a lot of colleges and universities in the area, and the larger ones are -always- hiring (UMD, JHU, AU, WM, Georgetown, the list goes on and on and on).
I know of a couple ISPs, still in business, profitable, and have been around since the mid-90's (pre-bubble) that would -easily- qualify as "mom and pop".
I worked part time at one of them and installed their second portmaster and modem bank for them back in 1995:)
Actually, due to my mortgage interest and credits for having two children (ohmygawd! a geek that spawned!) my tax rate is closer to 25%.
Of course, I -do- agree with you - We pay entirely too much in taxes. Both in the US, and globally. It's past time that people took responsibility for themselves and their own decisions, and stopped trying to fix everyone, and everything.
Fix yourselves first. That goes for everyone, including the shortsighted fuckwads who ratified Kyoto.
And that is why I laugh when the Canadians tell us that we're all fucked up down here in the US. 50% taxes? Not in my lifetime. 110k/yr = 54k/yr in taxes. Go to hell.
See, and that gets my goat a little bit (the younger folks not wanting to move). WHY?! Maybe the younger set -needs- to be exposed to the culture of the boonies/midwest to help counter their urban/suburban up-bringing. Maybe, instead of looking at what they're -missing- they need to see what's -there-.
Yeah - Boston, NYC, Philly, Miami, Atlanta, etc are all interesting places to live, but that doesn't mean they're the -best- places to live or work.
Me, personally? I'd -kill- to find a tech job in central PA or Ohio that paid me what I make now - I'd be able to get a house larger than I'm in now, likely on multiple acres, for -LESS- than I owe on my current place. There's a -lot- more to life than being near all the trendy, cool places. This especially becomes true if/once y'all start to breed (I've got 2 kids - I want to get as far away from the city as I possibly can).
Novell is "reinventing" themselves as a Linux company. Specifically, who do you think owns SuSE these days? It's Novell.
IMO - I think Novell has a couple of very nice products that they simply need to redeploy - a lot of the technology behind netware is actually pretty cool, but they allowed themselves to become marginalized (IOW - they sat on the laurels they built for themselves in the late80's and early '90s and it's almost put them out of business).
Once they finish this turn around, I expect them to regain some competitiveness, but getting back into "their" market is going to take some doing.
And we have no problem spending tens and hundreds of thousands on storage arrays that we know Will. Not. Fail. COTS doesn't cut it when you have data worth billions, guys.
Badnarik is polling better than Nader in NV - and in fact, is polling high enough to cover the margin of error in the last several polls conducted there.
He's very likely to play spoiler, more so than Nader in 2000.
Getting into SME is all fine and great, the problem is, IMO, -finding- the ones that need people with your skillset. I like my job - I keep clusters running for Hopkins (and design them, too), but I'd -kill- to be "The Guy" for a small, local business - even if it meant a paycut.
I've worked at a "small" company before (300 employees, downsized to 100 because we were borderline bankrupt, and they're now back to ~170 and -very- profitable) and while being in "start-up" mode sucked, stress wise, you -knew- that what you were doing could make or break the company - 'cause there was noone there to cover your back if you completely fucked up:)
It's a huge ego boost, lemme tell yah ^^
If anyone in the Baltimore area (specifically Owings Mills/Pikesville/Randallstown/etc) knows of job openings for a Sr. IT guy, lemme know in email ^^
Ain't that the truth. We (JHSPH) have departments who spend more money in a -week- on reagants and other chemicals then I spent on hardware all of this year (so far). It's simply nutty how much money goes down the drain at research schools - you really have to be here and see it to believe it.
IIRC, Use Fees for people using government services are, in fact, a libertarian idea. Cut taxes and charge people for using certain services. *shrug* That said - don't blame Ehrlich for the current budgetary mess - blame Glendening. Spending increased by like, 200% under the man, without regard for -actual- tax receipts. He was completely in the "we'll always be seeing tax income like this!" camp, and spent like a drunken sailor rather than bolstering the rainy-day fund or, god forbid, actually -cutting- taxes to match expenditures.
If you look at the governor's mansion, it's basically been almost 3 to 1 Dem to GOP since the end of the Civil War (state constitution was changed in 1867).
Maryland's primary "problems" - a decaying city called Baltimore populated -mostly- by ivory tower academics (who are dominantly Democrat) and the poor (mostly black, and mostly Democrat); and a shit-load of federal employees in bedroom counties (Howard, Montgomery and Prince George's, primarily) who -really- don't want to see their job prospects return to the dog eat dog corporate world.
I really wouldn't call Bobby Ehrlich a Libertarian. Seriously.
Additionally - most L candidates refuse federal campaign dollars for the obvious reasons, and, in fact, refuse corporate dollars, too. Corporations should be permitted to -lobby- legislators, but most certainly shouldn't be allowed to contribute to campaigns, PACs, etc. I have a very hard line on that issue. Coporations should also have legal person-hood revoked, but still retain certain protections for the execs running the place. There's a lot of reform needed in corporate law, IMO. Too much to really go into here.
The issue with getting 5% of the vote is that certain states (like Maryhell^WMaryland require that a presidential candidate must receive a certain percentage of the vote for that party to retain, or gain, major party status in the state - and that means automatic ballot access, which is -HUGE-. It means you don't have to go door to door getting people to sign petitions again. Continuing, the Libertarians lost MP status in MD because Browne didn't get enough of the vote last time around. In order to get on the ballot this time around, they had to go around and collect something like 35k signatures from MD voters requesting placement. Up until a recent court ruling, they had to do that -twice- - once for 35k, the second time for 50k. It really was a measure intended to keep third party candidates off the ballot - and was struck down accordingly.
For the record - I'm also an MD resident, and think the Bobby Ehrlich was, and is, a -=MUCH=- better choice for Gov. than Sauerbrey (ran against Glendening both times), KKT (Kathleen Kennedy Townsend), or Glendening sorry over-spending ass. His problem now is folks like Mike Busch who want completely different things WRT slots - the slots bill that just recently got nuked from going to referendum bears resemblance to Ehrlich's bill in that it's a slots bill, and that's about it.
I need this kind of capacity -TODAY-. I'm not the only one. No - optical media is not as resilient and reliable as magnetic tape, but it sure as hell would make doing backups easier when dealing with multi-TB disk arrays:)
None.... nada, zip, zilch, of the VMS folks I know are interested in even thinking of going there. They'd all rather let their trusty old VMS finish dying the rest of its death and they'll change to something they think to stand a better chance of future support... Like MS Windows systems on the low-end for most users, RS6000/AIX on the high end, and an extreme minority of this group is looking towards Linux and open source solutions.
I was specifically referring to this section of the Parent post - he's speaking about the VMS folks that he knows and their replcaement strategy - primarily towards Windows on the low-end and RS6Ks on the high end running AIX.
That said: What IT "Industry"? Are you referring to the remaining dot-coms or the contract services folks? In neither case are they some over-reaching IT Industry the term engenders.
IT had become embedded in -ALL- industry - there is no industry without IT these day (at least, not in the US). I do IT work in Higher Ed. You may do IT work for an automotive company, or a genomics firm, or a doctor's office. I don't work in the IT Industry - I do IT work in some -other- industry. Unless you work for an IBM, or HP, or Accenture, or some company that provides, as its bread and butter, IT products and services, you don't work in the IT Industry - you're an IT worker. A technician. A geek.:)
More a personal question than something really germaine to the whole thread, but - what industry are you talking about? Most of the VMS installations that I know about are either academic (and -are- being replaced with Linux boxes - not exclusively, but we can't have everything) or financial. There's plenty of copy on financial institutions running evaluation programs for linux systems and outright "we're doing it" situations, too.
That all said - support is king. If you can't 1. get the solution desired in place and 2. support it for 10 or 15 years (or more) you aren't going to get to Step 3: Profit. -Most- Linux providers aren't there yet, and will never get there. There really is too much infrastructure involved to support multi-billion dollar long term contracts for RedHat or Novell to pull off effectively. IBM, HP - these companies (and IBM -especially-) have built -huge- support divisions into their companies, and it's what has allowed them to make it through all of the recent economic problems.
You'd be suprised. Back when I was working as a CompUSA tech-monkey I had a couple of regular "side" customers that -routinely- paid me $100 per call to come out to their homes and do 10 minutes worth of work (seriously). The fact that I made the time to handle their problem made all the difference:)
That said - yeah, the -majority- of folks probably won't - even if they need to.
10%. And there is absolutely -NOTHING- wrong with this, either. I just watch this guy in absolute awe. I'm pretty good at trivia, but this guy just -owns- the freaking game. 800k, and counting, who -cares- that he's going to pay a 10% tithe to his Church, he's -still- not going to have to work for a while:)
One of the tactics that pretty much -all- DNSBLs (and even some ISPs wholesale - like Comcast, incidentally) is to simply not receive email from dial-up type networks. Comcast's consumer-level cable modem service really is no better than dial-up service from a certain point of view (ie. every j6p is able to use it - and they aren't exactly concerned about security).
The odds of a cable modem network getting out of MAPS is as likely as my winning a million bucks tomorrow - nil.
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Sorry to hear about your static - after about 40 or so they are the -only- way to level, IMO. Sure, you can do pickups all the way to 75, but you'll end up spending sooo much time LFP it's not funny. Even as a BLM or WHM (we have a 70WHM in my LS that has difficulty finding PTs except during JP prime-time).
Even with the static I'm in, we've had to make a "rule" that if 4 of us are on and ready, the other two get to play catch up.
This past saturday we actually ended up levelling with only 3 - our BLM was on, but was falling asleep at his PC and told us to go ahead.
3 hours later - 10.2k xp and went from 42 to 44. Hoorah.
Actually, I'm pretty "in" to FFXI.
:) :)
Challenge? Good luck getting past level 12 (or so) solo without grouping. It -can- be done, but it's going to take you almost four times as long to get to 20 as it will if you party (the lone exception being them bastard BSTs).
I've already seen several people come -back- to FFXI from EQ2 (and don't get me started on the folks -running- back from WoW), so I -do- have to question even it's level of challenge (or challenge vs. frustration) against FFXI. That said, -any- MMORPG that allows you to hit max level in under a month of playtime (and -definately- under a month of calendar time) isn't worth playing, IMO. It'd have to have an -immense- amount of endgame content to keep people interested for very long. And yes - even FFXI has a problem here. You can only farm the Gods so many times before they start getting boring (from what I hear - I'm but a lowly WHM44).
Eh. We all have different tastes, and FFXI also gives me an environment where I can learn/practice romanji Japanese
If you a comparatively easy game - feel free to play WoW. You want a challenge with pretty eye candy (and EQ2 is fucking -gorgeous- if you have a beefy enough system) play EQ2. You want bleeding from your eyeballs challenge (and frustration), play FFXI.
And above all - pick the game that you have the most fun playing, and don't flame those that disagree with you
6 in 1992...Christ...my baby sister is your age. In 1992 I was screwing around on my dad's new 486 and learning MS Windows 3.0 running on MS-DOS 5.0! I even got to upgrade it to MSDOS 6.0 (and later to 6.22) and I think I even did the upgrade to WFW3.11 *lol*
:) My dad walked into the room almost -immediately- after I typed it. *snicker* :( :(
:) It was also later upgraded to 32MB of RAM that Christmas, and replaced the following summer with my AMD K5 (can you tell I've been an AMD user forever?)
Anywho, I first started on a TI-99/4 (we even had the speech synthesizer!) when I was ~5 or so. It was -very- shortly after we moved to Boston in 1981. I distinctly remember an incident when a friend an I were screwing around, and I learned my first real curse-word: Fuck.
It was hysterical, lemme tell ya
Grounded from the thing for a month, and couldn't talk to my friend for even longer
At the same time I was putzing around on my pretty cartridge based system, my grandfather had gotten a Commodore64 (and later a 128!) That was fun to play on when I visited for an extended period of time for Christmas and New Years in 1982/3ish. I miss that computer
Anyway - our next computer (that I recall) was a brand-spankin' new Tandy 1000 in 1984. Woo!
After that the computers were basically a haze, since my dad seemed to be upgrading every couple of years or so. The first "PC" that -I- owned was an IBM PS/2. I think we got it when I was in middle school (1988/1989ish). After that was an orgy of upgrades, until I inherited my dad's computer in 1994 when I shipped off to college - my very own AMD 486DX-2 50MHz with 16MB of RAM and a 520MB HD! Of course, I'd been using it through-out High School to write papers, learn BASIC, etc on
Early 1995 was when I first started using Linux (in fact, it was just about this time 10 years ago, now...)
The rest, I guess you could say, is history.
With the exception of my handful of Dell rigs, and the cluster I inherited when I started here - everything I have now is AMD.
:)
That's a full 32node cluster, a 4-way, and a few other goodies.
So like, bite me
This isn't -quite- true. If you manage to find an entry level job with a contractor (think PC tech at NARA - BTDT) and manage to stick around and move up the ranks, the odds of them getting you a clearance improve, since it may be necessary for a given promotion, and they may be unable to bring in an "outsider" for the position. :)
I know of at least one case where a contractor -has- gone and done the entire process for a TS/Poly for employees being moved to a very specific contract. I have no reason to believe that this is exceedingly rare (uncommon, probably, but not rare as I think of the term).
If you have the skillset, you -will- get jobs, regardless of clearance status, provided the contractor can put you to use while waiting on the clearance process. IF they can't - then yeah, yer hosed
That all said - the federal government ain't the only place to get work in the greater Washington/Baltimore area. There's a hell of a lot of colleges and universities in the area, and the larger ones are -always- hiring (UMD, JHU, AU, WM, Georgetown, the list goes on and on and on).
And the pay is decent, too.
I know of a couple ISPs, still in business, profitable, and have been around since the mid-90's (pre-bubble) that would -easily- qualify as "mom and pop".
:)
I worked part time at one of them and installed their second portmaster and modem bank for them back in 1995
Similar to the idea that the idle wealthy should be taxed more than the working wealthy.
:) I'm much more into use taxes/fees :)
Both of which I -vehemently- disagree with.
But then, I'm an anti-income/wealth/property/etc tax weirdo
Actually, due to my mortgage interest and credits for having two children (ohmygawd! a geek that spawned!) my tax rate is closer to 25%.
Of course, I -do- agree with you - We pay entirely too much in taxes. Both in the US, and globally. It's past time that people took responsibility for themselves and their own decisions, and stopped trying to fix everyone, and everything.
Fix yourselves first. That goes for everyone, including the shortsighted fuckwads who ratified Kyoto.
And that is why I laugh when the Canadians tell us that we're all fucked up down here in the US.
50% taxes? Not in my lifetime.
110k/yr = 54k/yr in taxes. Go to hell.
See, and that gets my goat a little bit (the younger folks not wanting to move).
WHY?! Maybe the younger set -needs- to be exposed to the culture of the boonies/midwest to help counter their urban/suburban up-bringing. Maybe, instead of looking at what they're -missing- they need to see what's -there-.
Yeah - Boston, NYC, Philly, Miami, Atlanta, etc are all interesting places to live, but that doesn't mean they're the -best- places to live or work.
Me, personally? I'd -kill- to find a tech job in central PA or Ohio that paid me what I make now - I'd be able to get a house larger than I'm in now, likely on multiple acres, for -LESS- than I owe on my current place. There's a -lot- more to life than being near all the trendy, cool places. This especially becomes true if/once y'all start to breed (I've got 2 kids - I want to get as far away from the city as I possibly can).
Novell is "reinventing" themselves as a Linux company.
Specifically, who do you think owns SuSE these days? It's Novell.
IMO - I think Novell has a couple of very nice products that they simply need to redeploy - a lot of the technology behind netware is actually pretty cool, but they allowed themselves to become marginalized (IOW - they sat on the laurels they built for themselves in the late80's and early '90s and it's almost put them out of business).
Once they finish this turn around, I expect them to regain some competitiveness, but getting back into "their" market is going to take some doing.
And we have no problem spending tens and hundreds of thousands on storage arrays that we know Will. Not. Fail.
COTS doesn't cut it when you have data worth billions, guys.
Badnarik is polling better than Nader in NV - and in fact, is polling high enough to cover the margin of error in the last several polls conducted there.
He's very likely to play spoiler, more so than Nader in 2000.
Getting into SME is all fine and great, the problem is, IMO, -finding- the ones that need people with your skillset.
:)
I like my job - I keep clusters running for Hopkins (and design them, too), but I'd -kill- to be "The Guy" for a small, local business - even if it meant a paycut.
I've worked at a "small" company before (300 employees, downsized to 100 because we were borderline bankrupt, and they're now back to ~170 and -very- profitable) and while being in "start-up" mode sucked, stress wise, you -knew- that what you were doing could make or break the company - 'cause there was noone there to cover your back if you completely fucked up
It's a huge ego boost, lemme tell yah ^^
If anyone in the Baltimore area (specifically Owings Mills/Pikesville/Randallstown/etc) knows of job openings for a Sr. IT guy, lemme know in email ^^
Ain't that the truth.
We (JHSPH) have departments who spend more money in a -week- on reagants and other chemicals then I spent on hardware all of this year (so far).
It's simply nutty how much money goes down the drain at research schools - you really have to be here and see it to believe it.
IIRC, Use Fees for people using government services are, in fact, a libertarian idea. Cut taxes and charge people for using certain services.
*shrug* That said - don't blame Ehrlich for the current budgetary mess - blame Glendening. Spending increased by like, 200% under the man, without regard for -actual- tax receipts. He was completely in the "we'll always be seeing tax income like this!" camp, and spent like a drunken sailor rather than bolstering the rainy-day fund or, god forbid, actually -cutting- taxes to match expenditures.
If you look at the governor's mansion, it's basically been almost 3 to 1 Dem to GOP since the end of the Civil War (state constitution was changed in 1867).
Maryland's primary "problems" - a decaying city called Baltimore populated -mostly- by ivory tower academics (who are dominantly Democrat) and the poor (mostly black, and mostly Democrat); and a shit-load of federal employees in bedroom counties (Howard, Montgomery and Prince George's, primarily) who -really- don't want to see their job prospects return to the dog eat dog corporate world.
I really wouldn't call Bobby Ehrlich a Libertarian. Seriously.
Additionally - most L candidates refuse federal campaign dollars for the obvious reasons, and, in fact, refuse corporate dollars, too. Corporations should be permitted to -lobby- legislators, but most certainly shouldn't be allowed to contribute to campaigns, PACs, etc. I have a very hard line on that issue. Coporations should also have legal person-hood revoked, but still retain certain protections for the execs running the place. There's a lot of reform needed in corporate law, IMO. Too much to really go into here.
The issue with getting 5% of the vote is that certain states (like Maryhell^WMaryland require that a presidential candidate must receive a certain percentage of the vote for that party to retain, or gain, major party status in the state - and that means automatic ballot access, which is -HUGE-. It means you don't have to go door to door getting people to sign petitions again.
Continuing, the Libertarians lost MP status in MD because Browne didn't get enough of the vote last time around. In order to get on the ballot this time around, they had to go around and collect something like 35k signatures from MD voters requesting placement. Up until a recent court ruling, they had to do that -twice- - once for 35k, the second time for 50k. It really was a measure intended to keep third party candidates off the ballot - and was struck down accordingly.
For the record - I'm also an MD resident, and think the Bobby Ehrlich was, and is, a -=MUCH=- better choice for Gov. than Sauerbrey (ran against Glendening both times), KKT (Kathleen Kennedy Townsend), or Glendening sorry over-spending ass. His problem now is folks like Mike Busch who want completely different things WRT slots - the slots bill that just recently got nuked from going to referendum bears resemblance to Ehrlich's bill in that it's a slots bill, and that's about it.
G4 - produced by Motorola initially, IBM later, IIRC.
G5 - PPC970. Seriously. It's Power5 for the desktop.
I need this kind of capacity -TODAY-. :)
I'm not the only one. No - optical media is not as resilient and reliable as magnetic tape, but it sure as hell would make doing backups easier when dealing with multi-TB disk arrays
None.... nada, zip, zilch, of the VMS folks I know are interested in even thinking of going there. They'd all rather let their trusty old VMS finish dying the rest of its death and they'll change to something they think to stand a better chance of future support... Like MS Windows systems on the low-end for most users, RS6000/AIX on the high end, and an extreme minority of this group is looking towards Linux and open source solutions.
:)
I was specifically referring to this section of the Parent post - he's speaking about the VMS folks that he knows and their replcaement strategy - primarily towards Windows on the low-end and RS6Ks on the high end running AIX.
That said: What IT "Industry"? Are you referring to the remaining dot-coms or the contract services folks? In neither case are they some over-reaching IT Industry the term engenders.
IT had become embedded in -ALL- industry - there is no industry without IT these day (at least, not in the US). I do IT work in Higher Ed. You may do IT work for an automotive company, or a genomics firm, or a doctor's office. I don't work in the IT Industry - I do IT work in some -other- industry. Unless you work for an IBM, or HP, or Accenture, or some company that provides, as its bread and butter, IT products and services, you don't work in the IT Industry - you're an IT worker. A technician.
A geek.
More a personal question than something really germaine to the whole thread, but - what industry are you talking about? Most of the VMS installations that I know about are either academic (and -are- being replaced with Linux boxes - not exclusively, but we can't have everything) or financial. There's plenty of copy on financial institutions running evaluation programs for linux systems and outright "we're doing it" situations, too.
That all said - support is king. If you can't 1. get the solution desired in place and 2. support it for 10 or 15 years (or more) you aren't going to get to Step 3: Profit.
-Most- Linux providers aren't there yet, and will never get there. There really is too much infrastructure involved to support multi-billion dollar long term contracts for RedHat or Novell to pull off effectively. IBM, HP - these companies (and IBM -especially-) have built -huge- support divisions into their companies, and it's what has allowed them to make it through all of the recent economic problems.
You'd be suprised. :)
Back when I was working as a CompUSA tech-monkey I had a couple of regular "side" customers that -routinely- paid me $100 per call to come out to their homes and do 10 minutes worth of work (seriously). The fact that I made the time to handle their problem made all the difference
That said - yeah, the -majority- of folks probably won't - even if they need to.
10%. :)
And there is absolutely -NOTHING- wrong with this, either.
I just watch this guy in absolute awe. I'm pretty good at trivia, but this guy just -owns- the freaking game. 800k, and counting, who -cares- that he's going to pay a 10% tithe to his Church, he's -still- not going to have to work for a while
Very, _VERY_ unlikely.
One of the tactics that pretty much -all- DNSBLs (and even some ISPs wholesale - like Comcast, incidentally) is to simply not receive email from dial-up type networks. Comcast's consumer-level cable modem service really is no better than dial-up service from a certain point of view (ie. every j6p is able to use it - and they aren't exactly concerned about security).
The odds of a cable modem network getting out of MAPS is as likely as my winning a million bucks tomorrow - nil.