Initially, I was very impressed with IBM drives. Not just price/performance, but they look pretty too. And hell, they were IBM, which I am ashamed to admit, I had some faith in. My main box still has two 13.5GB 7200rpm drives humming along happily. So when it came time to trick out new boxes at home and work, I bought IBM drives.
The 75GXP models were a complete nightmare. Two drives arrived DOA, one right after the other. Replacements were refurbs - and I'd *paid* for *new drives*. They didn't last long, despite active cooling with Ion Storms. A half dozen friends and co-workers had bought 75GXP drives as well and experienced similar problems. Although I didn't experience any significant data loss (backup,backup,backup) two went through the pain and agony of massive data loss.
After that experience, zippo cooperation from IBM, and sharing my experience with other hosed netziens, I blacklisted all IBM products from corporate IT purchases, recommendations, and personal purchases.
When a corporation won't take responsibility for its defective products, won't replace them with products of equal value, and won't even fess up about problems with their products then I won't do business with them.
He is not paying for internet access, he is paying to go to college.
No, at least at my university. The breakdown of your bill shows all the crap you pay for, including internet access (dialup and LAN) and other technology fees. However, there is a policy in place that precludes you from doing anything non-academic on the network, like P2P file sharing (no, you can't claim it for "academic reasons"), pr0n, playing games, and a host of other stuff. Nor can you connect anything to the network without the permission of InfoSys.
You have to sign the agreement to get an account - however, interestingly enough there is no refund if you don't sign, refuse to sign, have another ISP, or just want your money back.
Neat, but the lack of a PCMCIA slot bites - I'd like to carry my music on a teeny 1GB drive.
Y'know, that is a really really good idea - subscribers given opportunity to post before regular users.
Another feature I'd like to see is a freaking cache of pages linked-to offsite, to relieve the/. effect. Have a/. cache for subscribers, google cache link for non-subs maybe? Whatever the cache solution, I like to see editors post google cache links (or other mirrors) with every story.
In the interests of conserving disk space for slashdot cached stuff, the cache of pages can be purged after 24 or so hours and the links to them redirected to the original site.
Granted, not every story will be found in Google's cache or other online caches, but most will be. By the time I see most stories, the site is already been hammered. I know I'm not alone in this, which is why we have so many +5, Informative moderations for copy & paste jobs - which brings up copyright issues.
Great precedent...now we can look forward to MS Linux, MS Gimp...
Guess there's nothing to prevent them from releasing a distro now - but hey, if they take this iffy legal stance I wonder how much GPL'ed code will end up proprietized.
Sigh. Evidently you didn't read my post and jump to unwarranted conclusions. I never said that I didn't know how to secure my boxes or my network. I'm quite aware of how to secure both, thank you very much. Is my implementation perfect? No, of course not.
Some of what bothers me about Windows security issues are: (a) obvious security problems in shipping products, (b) security-through-obscurity policies, and (c) let's everyone use Passport.
And yes, I do think that I have an excellent chance of securing a *nix network and of mastering a *nix OS. Why?
Because I have a fucking brain. I read documentation, experiment, and learn. I ask questions of those who know more than I do. Everyone has to start somewhere - there was certainly a time before you (or CowboyNeal or any other person) knew squat about *nix. No, I'm not a complete newbie to Linux/Unix; nor am I ashamed of say that I'm not a seasoned *nix admin.
Until the beginning of the year, every place I've worked and I have been collectively hogtied to Microsoft software. In stages I'm migrating to OpenBSD and RedHat. At work, I have a Citrix Server, run TigerPaw, and am running ASP 3.0 web applications with SQL Server 2000 Enterprise. All workstations are running Windows 2000 Professional. It's expensive and insecure.
I've fooled with various flavors of Linux/Unix on and off for years, but not seriously until recently. No, I didn't use it as my home system much. I've done basic admin stuff, written a few apps in Ada, C++, and Java; did some web stuff with PHP and MySQL (in vi, even) - but not day-to-day by any stretch. But recently I've been RTFM and investigating how I can replicate and extend functionality. I've been learning.
I have one proprietary application I'm trying to get running with WINE, then it's gravy. Of course, we'll have to eat the licenses we've already purchased; but that's a small price to pay when you consider the benefits of being free from the shackles of endless licensing fees, forced upgrades, abusive EULAs, poor security, and so on ad nauseum.
A year ago the company paid $30,000 for a Citrix Server, and a 10 user TigerPaw license. When the need arose to add more users to TigerPaw, I was told I needed to "upgrade" to the "brand new" latest version of TigerPaw THEN purchase additional licenses - which would cost me an additional $20,000. "Oh, and you should probably upgrade to the latest version of Citrix too," was helpful advice. They weren't "offering" CALs for my version anymore.
Yes, there are some bumps and potholes in the open-source road, but at least I can find a fix quickly or (gasp) fix it myself. I don't have to worry about landmines and pay a toll every mile in order to get somewhere.
In the work environment we use Citrix to allow multiple users to use TigerPaw - a business suite. Windows 2000 is on the client side, though I'm testing replacements with Linux and FreeBSD as OSes.
Citrix is extremely expensive. Our solution ran some $20k - on the cheap even. Add to that the cost of Terminal Server Client Access Licenses, Windows Client Access Licenses, Citrix Client Access Licenses, and a license for every app (per user) you're going to run off the server. Oh, and Office has extra licensing requirements as well. And don't forget training.
On the plus side, Citrix is a breeze to use and manage. The 2000 release is rock-solid stable, though I haven't evaluated XP yet. The huge price tag really turns me off. Make damned sure you lock your box down tighter than a choirboy's ass - check out this ArsTechnica article for a good place to start. Keep up at BugTraq and other security spots for exploits.
I bought 10 old 233MMX Pentium workstations loaded with RAM for a song that I'm using to add/replace workstations. However, from a pricing standpoint there are (so far) few advantages to running Windows-free on the client side if you have to use a lot of Microsoft applications. This is by design.
I've evaluated StarOffice, but it's just not going to cut the mustard for document compatibility (reading *and* writing). However, I'm very happy with Corel Office and plan to migrate to that company-wide.
If you're at all concerned about this, as a consumer, IT worker, or otherwise engaged then CALL TAUZIN'S OFFICE TODAY at (202) 225-4031
or toll-free in Louisiana at 1-800-352-2890 and complain loudly. Then call your representative. Don't email them -- CALL - the bill goes up for a vote *tomorrow*.
I live in Louisiana (Tauzin's state) and called his office to oppose the bill. When I called Tauzin's office, the staffer didn't take any information down and didn't seem terribly interested in hearing my opposition. I voiced it anyway, then put a call in to my representative. When I called Jim McCrery's office, the staffer was very interested in hearing what I had to say and took down a ton of information. I'm surprised considering the lukewarm reception my infrequent calls usually get. I'm pretty left-field politically-speaking. Anyway, on to the call:
Questions and answers:
---SNIP---
How is this going to affect you?
I'm going to have to replace my hardware with BellSouth hardware, adding $200. And my monthly fee will increase by $40 a month for a static IP that is already included in my current ISP's service. It's going to bring my choice for broadband down from 2 to 1 company. I won't be able to run a web server from my home anymore, which means an increase of $100 or more per month to replace that service.
So this is going to kill your current ISP?
Yes, mine and a lot of others. My ISP is bayou.com, by the way. You can get the address information from their web site. I telecommute to work at least once a week and being forced to switch is going to cause some issues there too. I'm the IT Director for my company and I'm not happy about this. I have branch offices set up on DSL and our company is going to have to go through this too. And it's going to cause problems for our employees.
What company do you work for? Are you in Louisiana? How will this affect your business?
Yes, we're [company name] based in [rural town], Louisiana. We install [major brand satellite] systems for [major brand satellite company] in [multistate market] and have about 250 employees and contractors. [Major brand satellite] also competes with BellSouth in the DSL market. We've been looking into providing a wireless/DSL installation service. If this bill passes - well, it shuts everyone out except BellSouth.
---SNIP---
Anyway, this screws a lot of the little guys and a couple of the big guys too. The Mom & Pop ISP that we use will be SOL, we'll be screwed, and it will hurt everyone except BellSouth and other baby bells. This on the heels of the HDTV debacle has put a major dark cloud over my week.
The staffer wouldn't tell me what the congressman's position was on this bill (big surprise) but assured me I'd be hearing from them and that my opposition would be passed along to the congressman - not a big surprise considering that it's election season and we're a business in his congressional district. Hopefully he'll do the right thing on this score - I can only hope...and call...and vote...:)
Yes, but in the case of connecting to the wrong site the site's owner chose to enable logging. If they have a domain registered they're inviting http traffic (and traffic on any other OPEN ports). They can log or not log, that's entirely up to them - the modification is theirs, not yours.
Yeah, spammers make a similar argument about people having an email address. "They're inviting traffic" - but that's crap. If you visit my web site it's not causing me harm. But if you do a DoS attack... Spam is the equivalent of a DoS attack. So are those damned pop-ups.
Hey - I'm a numbnuts who can't seem to post to the right thread. Someone mod my last post down to the depths of hell and burn my ass for some serious karma.
Well, I can nix a biz plan. This is going to seriously harm our collective viewing pleasure and screw the company I work for. We install [major satellite service] systems. We were on the cusp of offering home theatre installs as add-ons. And I was *this* close to getting HDTV, an HDTV PC tuner card, and enjoying some PVR sweetness by putting shows like Enterprise and Sopranos on DVD. I guess this is exactly what Hollywood is upset about.
Now I actually *buy* DVDs of my favorite shows when available - even some of the ones I already have on disc or tape. It's a lot easier than clipping commercials - even with the loss of quality for some shows. My job means that I miss a lot of shows I like - hence the desire for PVR. Now I only watch about 10 hours of TV a week - my favorite shows - unlike most other people. Now it seems like a lot more trouble than it's worth.
Funny, I seem to remember the Supreme Court cracking down on the movie industry circa 1980 so you and I could tape TV shows on our VCRs. Seems like a class-action suit is going to be necessary again. Perhaps there will be enough grass-roots upswell to overturn the DMCA, but with the global tendrils it has it's going to be a damned hard fight.
First, excellent point: yes, you should make sure the problem doesn't happen again once you track down the root cause.
From an earlier post in this thread:
In these situations never lay down and die or meekly accept the blame. That's bullcrap - I don't care where you are on the totem pole, speak up. It's equally important to take the heat for stuff you did screw up - fess up.
You're right in that responsibility is finding the problem, tracking it down, fixing it, and making sure it doesn't recur. You're obligated to take responsibility for your actions.
But you are not obligated to take the blame for someone else's mess - to be the "sacrificial lamb" so someone else can duck responsibility. That's bullshit.
I make a big distinction between blame and responsibility. Blame is the BS "it's not my fault" finger pointing that goes on, often before a problem has been diagnosed. I know of LOT of management-types who are far more interested in crushing someone (sometimes anyone) underfoot than they are in finding out what went wrong and why. Only AFTER you've gone through that process can you find out who screwed up.
Talking with the person who screwed up so they don't repeat the error should be enough. That depends on how serious the error was, of course. Sometimes canning the offender is necessary, but that's rarely necessary except in the case of constant screwups. However, demeaning or berating someone is never appropriate. It's childish, unproductive, and turns good people into disgruntled employees.
I think you misunderstood who I was criticizing - after rereading my post I realized that I wasn't terribly clear. I was referring to people who look for sacrificial lambs and point a finger at other people - they're the problem. I wasn't referring to cnelzie. I've been in his shoes before, being hit with blame for projects in which I've been completely uninvolved.
In these situations never lay down and die or meekly accept the blame. That's bullcrap - I don't care where you are on the totem pole, speak up. It's equally important to take the heat for stuff you did screw up - fess up.
And of course fix the problem, if it's yours to fix. If not, you might suggest how they can fix their problem - beginning with the jerk who blames you for their failings.
Of course the best way to fix it may be another job.
The blame game is a sign of deep problems. I've never understood why it's better to blame someone than solve the problem at hand. Sure, you can't fix everything. But the ones who are always pointing fingers are usually the root of the problem at hand.
For the most part, I love my job. #1 - the people are the most well-natured I've ever worked with. Running IT takes a lot of energy and I'm always pressed for time, but my boss is a geek too and a lot of fun. We don't shoot nerf guns around cubicles or anything, but can go deer hunting or fishing now and again. It's a small business that's been around for 21 years and has grown steadily.
I hunker down and code most of the time, plan stuff, and handle inevitable admin tasks. I have another IT guy I've worked with before coming on board soon to handle networking and tech support. My budget is whatever I need, within reason. I'm a tightwad - most-bang-for-the-buck kinda guy, but if I need to spend $20,000 I can. It's nice.
While I made a good living for rural Louisiana, I'm not driving a Porsche or anything. I make about half of what I could make in a major metro. But I work 45 minutes from my home town, telecommute a day a week, have deep local roots, and get to hang out with my friends and have a life. Don't mean to rub it in, but life is great.
I thought about picking an Alpha up for VMS hacking when I worked at my alma mater. DEC (and then Compaq) were pretty decent about supporting the VMS hobby crowd.
I'm continuously amazed at just how cheap hardware has gotten and how sweet various distros of *nix run on yesteryear's boxes. Last month I grabbed ten loaded Pentium 233 MMX boxes off Ebay for $890 (with shipping) and am pressing them into service as workstations.
How dare they put unobtrusive advertising on their search engine? I want more annoying pop-up ads, transitional advertising pages, flash animations, and javascript so my mp3's skip. Even better if the ad covers the content, so I have to move it so I can get two paragraph of links to 404 errors.
God damn them, damn them all to the fiery pits of hell!
Okay, so your ReplayTV or TiVo will let you snag your favorite shows for viewing later. Sweet - it's fair use. But if I could BUY a season of high-def DVD-quality 16:10 episodes right after a season ends, I would. Why do I have to wait 5 years for the studio to get around to offering the DVD version of my favorite show(s)? Why not sell a collection of the whole season right after the season ends?
This wouldn't necessarily hurt re-runs and here's why - better quality, no stupid logos or other crap on bottom of screen, no commercial interruptions, extra bonus stuff. Core audience would be most likely to pay for this. Can build larger audience for show, etc. Broadcast rights can still be sold for reruns - there will always be an audience for them.
In short, best way to combat PVRs is to put out a better product at a decent price - sell the whole 22 episode season on a 6 DVD set for $90 or so - immediately AFTER the end of the season. Otherwise ppl who missed are either going to record them to TiVo, ReplayTV, or just go to go to Morpheus, LimeWire, BearShare or some other P2P and get them anyway.
$6 Billion for 360,000 desktops!?!? Uh, that comes out to about $16,667 per workstation (yeah, I know - there are some servers in the mix but sheesh). I'll do it for half.:)
After doing a bit of google searching I found that the ISS is a hodge-podge of several interlocking computers running various operating systems - IRIX, Windows 95, (others I couldn't identify - vague references)... and a Slackware distro of Linux is slated for an escape shuttle soon. Who knows if that will make it into the mix now that the budget is being hacked to pieces.
The mix of systems isn't necessarily a bad thing since each system was (ostensibly) chosen for its particular task. I was unable to find any information on the systems running avionics or which OS the attitude control system that went belly-up was running. I'm curious - any project managers out there know the answer?
Some of these systems are Russian in design, which has hampered my search since I don't grok the language. The Russians have long experience with putting stuff up that works forever - be nice to know what sort of hardware/software they use. Their systems are home-grown on the ISS - except for a few boxen for Russian crew. BTW, all PC-type boxes on the ISS are ThinkPads with an odd terminal or two floating around for good measure.
Though currently working in IT, I'm an educational technologist and have worked in academia. Though infrastructure, hardware, and software are all important considerations most of your dollars need to be spent in training or you may as well be flushing the money down the toilet. Time and again, I've seen sexy ambitious projects have little or no impact in the classroom because virtually every dollar was spent on the technology.
Teachers were expected (but not required) to attend weekend or summer inservice training sessions without additional pay or travel expenses. When computers finally arrived in their classrooms they didn't know what to do with them and support was stretched so thin that these boxes would often sit unopened for months. Hardware and software problems chewed through their lab machines - problems as simple as a loose power cable or unplugged network card. Needless to say, for most classrooms the impact of technology was negative. Many teachers and administrators became even more resistant to technology integration as a result.
Whatever your project, ensure that you budget plenty of money for training and for technical support. This is the best possible expenditure you can make. If you have to cut costs, do it in the hardware and software. It won't be as sexy on paper, but it will have a better chance of succeeding rather than be doomed for failure from the start.
IANAL - If you write a policy, post it, email it, and get people to sign off on it and DON'T enforce it you're not going to be free of liability. Not enforcing it is not following due diligence and affords no more protection than not having a policy to begin with.
Yeah, I've played with XP and it's pretty damned stable but I find Windows 2000 just as stable for the PC games I play. I won't go into the litany of reasons why I reject XP except to say that stability isn't one of them.
Unlike Enron, the news about Loki is sad and all. Like many Linux users, I never bought (or played) any of their ported games, so I'm not put out. Good luck to all concerned - and thanks for the work on WINE!
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The 75GXP models were a complete nightmare. Two drives arrived DOA, one right after the other. Replacements were refurbs - and I'd *paid* for *new drives*. They didn't last long, despite active cooling with Ion Storms. A half dozen friends and co-workers had bought 75GXP drives as well and experienced similar problems. Although I didn't experience any significant data loss (backup,backup,backup) two went through the pain and agony of massive data loss.
After that experience, zippo cooperation from IBM, and sharing my experience with other hosed netziens, I blacklisted all IBM products from corporate IT purchases, recommendations, and personal purchases.
When a corporation won't take responsibility for its defective products, won't replace them with products of equal value, and won't even fess up about problems with their products then I won't do business with them.
No, at least at my university. The breakdown of your bill shows all the crap you pay for, including internet access (dialup and LAN) and other technology fees. However, there is a policy in place that precludes you from doing anything non-academic on the network, like P2P file sharing (no, you can't claim it for "academic reasons"), pr0n, playing games, and a host of other stuff. Nor can you connect anything to the network without the permission of InfoSys.
You have to sign the agreement to get an account - however, interestingly enough there is no refund if you don't sign, refuse to sign, have another ISP, or just want your money back.
Y'know, that is a really really good idea - subscribers given opportunity to post before regular users.
Another feature I'd like to see is a freaking cache of pages linked-to offsite, to relieve the /. effect. Have a /. cache for subscribers, google cache link for non-subs maybe? Whatever the cache solution, I like to see editors post google cache links (or other mirrors) with every story.
In the interests of conserving disk space for slashdot cached stuff, the cache of pages can be purged after 24 or so hours and the links to them redirected to the original site.
Granted, not every story will be found in Google's cache or other online caches, but most will be. By the time I see most stories, the site is already been hammered. I know I'm not alone in this, which is why we have so many +5, Informative moderations for copy & paste jobs - which brings up copyright issues.
Guess there's nothing to prevent them from releasing a distro now - but hey, if they take this iffy legal stance I wonder how much GPL'ed code will end up proprietized.
Some of what bothers me about Windows security issues are: (a) obvious security problems in shipping products, (b) security-through-obscurity policies, and (c) let's everyone use Passport.
And yes, I do think that I have an excellent chance of securing a *nix network and of mastering a *nix OS. Why?
Because I have a fucking brain. I read documentation, experiment, and learn. I ask questions of those who know more than I do. Everyone has to start somewhere - there was certainly a time before you (or CowboyNeal or any other person) knew squat about *nix. No, I'm not a complete newbie to Linux/Unix; nor am I ashamed of say that I'm not a seasoned *nix admin.
Until the beginning of the year, every place I've worked and I have been collectively hogtied to Microsoft software. In stages I'm migrating to OpenBSD and RedHat. At work, I have a Citrix Server, run TigerPaw, and am running ASP 3.0 web applications with SQL Server 2000 Enterprise. All workstations are running Windows 2000 Professional. It's expensive and insecure.
I've fooled with various flavors of Linux/Unix on and off for years, but not seriously until recently. No, I didn't use it as my home system much. I've done basic admin stuff, written a few apps in Ada, C++, and Java; did some web stuff with PHP and MySQL (in vi, even) - but not day-to-day by any stretch. But recently I've been RTFM and investigating how I can replicate and extend functionality. I've been learning.
I have one proprietary application I'm trying to get running with WINE, then it's gravy. Of course, we'll have to eat the licenses we've already purchased; but that's a small price to pay when you consider the benefits of being free from the shackles of endless licensing fees, forced upgrades, abusive EULAs, poor security, and so on ad nauseum.
A year ago the company paid $30,000 for a Citrix Server, and a 10 user TigerPaw license. When the need arose to add more users to TigerPaw, I was told I needed to "upgrade" to the "brand new" latest version of TigerPaw THEN purchase additional licenses - which would cost me an additional $20,000. "Oh, and you should probably upgrade to the latest version of Citrix too," was helpful advice. They weren't "offering" CALs for my version anymore.
Yes, there are some bumps and potholes in the open-source road, but at least I can find a fix quickly or (gasp) fix it myself. I don't have to worry about landmines and pay a toll every mile in order to get somewhere.
Citrix is extremely expensive. Our solution ran some $20k - on the cheap even. Add to that the cost of Terminal Server Client Access Licenses, Windows Client Access Licenses, Citrix Client Access Licenses, and a license for every app (per user) you're going to run off the server. Oh, and Office has extra licensing requirements as well. And don't forget training.
On the plus side, Citrix is a breeze to use and manage. The 2000 release is rock-solid stable, though I haven't evaluated XP yet. The huge price tag really turns me off. Make damned sure you lock your box down tighter than a choirboy's ass - check out this ArsTechnica article for a good place to start. Keep up at BugTraq and other security spots for exploits.
I bought 10 old 233MMX Pentium workstations loaded with RAM for a song that I'm using to add/replace workstations. However, from a pricing standpoint there are (so far) few advantages to running Windows-free on the client side if you have to use a lot of Microsoft applications. This is by design.
I've evaluated StarOffice, but it's just not going to cut the mustard for document compatibility (reading *and* writing). However, I'm very happy with Corel Office and plan to migrate to that company-wide.
I live in Louisiana (Tauzin's state) and called his office to oppose the bill. When I called Tauzin's office, the staffer didn't take any information down and didn't seem terribly interested in hearing my opposition. I voiced it anyway, then put a call in to my representative. When I called Jim McCrery's office, the staffer was very interested in hearing what I had to say and took down a ton of information. I'm surprised considering the lukewarm reception my infrequent calls usually get. I'm pretty left-field politically-speaking. Anyway, on to the call:
Questions and answers:
---SNIP---
How is this going to affect you?
I'm going to have to replace my hardware with BellSouth hardware, adding $200. And my monthly fee will increase by $40 a month for a static IP that is already included in my current ISP's service. It's going to bring my choice for broadband down from 2 to 1 company. I won't be able to run a web server from my home anymore, which means an increase of $100 or more per month to replace that service.
So this is going to kill your current ISP?
Yes, mine and a lot of others. My ISP is bayou.com, by the way. You can get the address information from their web site. I telecommute to work at least once a week and being forced to switch is going to cause some issues there too. I'm the IT Director for my company and I'm not happy about this. I have branch offices set up on DSL and our company is going to have to go through this too. And it's going to cause problems for our employees.
What company do you work for? Are you in Louisiana? How will this affect your business?
Yes, we're [company name] based in [rural town], Louisiana. We install [major brand satellite] systems for [major brand satellite company] in [multistate market] and have about 250 employees and contractors. [Major brand satellite] also competes with BellSouth in the DSL market. We've been looking into providing a wireless/DSL installation service. If this bill passes - well, it shuts everyone out except BellSouth.
---SNIP---
Anyway, this screws a lot of the little guys and a couple of the big guys too. The Mom & Pop ISP that we use will be SOL, we'll be screwed, and it will hurt everyone except BellSouth and other baby bells. This on the heels of the HDTV debacle has put a major dark cloud over my week.
The staffer wouldn't tell me what the congressman's position was on this bill (big surprise) but assured me I'd be hearing from them and that my opposition would be passed along to the congressman - not a big surprise considering that it's election season and we're a business in his congressional district. Hopefully he'll do the right thing on this score - I can only hope...and call...and vote... :)
Yeah, spammers make a similar argument about people having an email address. "They're inviting traffic" - but that's crap. If you visit my web site it's not causing me harm. But if you do a DoS attack... Spam is the equivalent of a DoS attack. So are those damned pop-ups.
Hey - I'm a numbnuts who can't seem to post to the right thread. Someone mod my last post down to the depths of hell and burn my ass for some serious karma.
Now I actually *buy* DVDs of my favorite shows when available - even some of the ones I already have on disc or tape. It's a lot easier than clipping commercials - even with the loss of quality for some shows. My job means that I miss a lot of shows I like - hence the desire for PVR. Now I only watch about 10 hours of TV a week - my favorite shows - unlike most other people. Now it seems like a lot more trouble than it's worth.
Funny, I seem to remember the Supreme Court cracking down on the movie industry circa 1980 so you and I could tape TV shows on our VCRs. Seems like a class-action suit is going to be necessary again. Perhaps there will be enough grass-roots upswell to overturn the DMCA, but with the global tendrils it has it's going to be a damned hard fight.
From an earlier post in this thread:
You're right in that responsibility is finding the problem, tracking it down, fixing it, and making sure it doesn't recur. You're obligated to take responsibility for your actions.
But you are not obligated to take the blame for someone else's mess - to be the "sacrificial lamb" so someone else can duck responsibility. That's bullshit.
I make a big distinction between blame and responsibility. Blame is the BS "it's not my fault" finger pointing that goes on, often before a problem has been diagnosed. I know of LOT of management-types who are far more interested in crushing someone (sometimes anyone) underfoot than they are in finding out what went wrong and why. Only AFTER you've gone through that process can you find out who screwed up.
Talking with the person who screwed up so they don't repeat the error should be enough. That depends on how serious the error was, of course. Sometimes canning the offender is necessary, but that's rarely necessary except in the case of constant screwups. However, demeaning or berating someone is never appropriate. It's childish, unproductive, and turns good people into disgruntled employees.
In these situations never lay down and die or meekly accept the blame. That's bullcrap - I don't care where you are on the totem pole, speak up. It's equally important to take the heat for stuff you did screw up - fess up.
And of course fix the problem, if it's yours to fix. If not, you might suggest how they can fix their problem - beginning with the jerk who blames you for their failings.
Of course the best way to fix it may be another job.
Great - now I have to get a 2 CPU license for Micro$oft stuff...
The blame game is a sign of deep problems. I've never understood why it's better to blame someone than solve the problem at hand. Sure, you can't fix everything. But the ones who are always pointing fingers are usually the root of the problem at hand.
I hunker down and code most of the time, plan stuff, and handle inevitable admin tasks. I have another IT guy I've worked with before coming on board soon to handle networking and tech support. My budget is whatever I need, within reason. I'm a tightwad - most-bang-for-the-buck kinda guy, but if I need to spend $20,000 I can. It's nice.
While I made a good living for rural Louisiana, I'm not driving a Porsche or anything. I make about half of what I could make in a major metro. But I work 45 minutes from my home town, telecommute a day a week, have deep local roots, and get to hang out with my friends and have a life. Don't mean to rub it in, but life is great.
God don't let me fuck this up!
I'm continuously amazed at just how cheap hardware has gotten and how sweet various distros of *nix run on yesteryear's boxes. Last month I grabbed ten loaded Pentium 233 MMX boxes off Ebay for $890 (with shipping) and am pressing them into service as workstations.
How dare they put unobtrusive advertising on their search engine? I want more annoying pop-up ads, transitional advertising pages, flash animations, and javascript so my mp3's skip. Even better if the ad covers the content, so I have to move it so I can get two paragraph of links to 404 errors.
God damn them, damn them all to the fiery pits of hell!
This wouldn't necessarily hurt re-runs and here's why - better quality, no stupid logos or other crap on bottom of screen, no commercial interruptions, extra bonus stuff. Core audience would be most likely to pay for this. Can build larger audience for show, etc. Broadcast rights can still be sold for reruns - there will always be an audience for them.
In short, best way to combat PVRs is to put out a better product at a decent price - sell the whole 22 episode season on a 6 DVD set for $90 or so - immediately AFTER the end of the season. Otherwise ppl who missed are either going to record them to TiVo, ReplayTV, or just go to go to Morpheus, LimeWire, BearShare or some other P2P and get them anyway.
$6 Billion for 360,000 desktops!?!? Uh, that comes out to about $16,667 per workstation (yeah, I know - there are some servers in the mix but sheesh). I'll do it for half. :)
The mix of systems isn't necessarily a bad thing since each system was (ostensibly) chosen for its particular task. I was unable to find any information on the systems running avionics or which OS the attitude control system that went belly-up was running. I'm curious - any project managers out there know the answer?
Some of these systems are Russian in design, which has hampered my search since I don't grok the language. The Russians have long experience with putting stuff up that works forever - be nice to know what sort of hardware/software they use. Their systems are home-grown on the ISS - except for a few boxen for Russian crew. BTW, all PC-type boxes on the ISS are ThinkPads with an odd terminal or two floating around for good measure.
Anyone interested in picking apart the station would benefit greatly from International Space Station Evolution Data Book (PDF), which can also be viewed in it's google-rendered HTML format.
Evil is better than good, dark is brighter than light, less is more, and the Earth is flat. Fnord.
Teachers were expected (but not required) to attend weekend or summer inservice training sessions without additional pay or travel expenses. When computers finally arrived in their classrooms they didn't know what to do with them and support was stretched so thin that these boxes would often sit unopened for months. Hardware and software problems chewed through their lab machines - problems as simple as a loose power cable or unplugged network card. Needless to say, for most classrooms the impact of technology was negative. Many teachers and administrators became even more resistant to technology integration as a result.
Whatever your project, ensure that you budget plenty of money for training and for technical support. This is the best possible expenditure you can make. If you have to cut costs, do it in the hardware and software. It won't be as sexy on paper, but it will have a better chance of succeeding rather than be doomed for failure from the start.
IANAL - If you write a policy, post it, email it, and get people to sign off on it and DON'T enforce it you're not going to be free of liability. Not enforcing it is not following due diligence and affords no more protection than not having a policy to begin with.
1. Insert disc.
2. Play.
Yeah, I've played with XP and it's pretty damned stable but I find Windows 2000 just as stable for the PC games I play. I won't go into the litany of reasons why I reject XP except to say that stability isn't one of them.
Unlike Enron, the news about Loki is sad and all. Like many Linux users, I never bought (or played) any of their ported games, so I'm not put out. Good luck to all concerned - and thanks for the work on WINE!