1) I live in the NYC metro area (NJ actually) 2) I'm a Unix sysadmin for a... uhm... rather large company ( > 40,000 employees) 3) My salary is ~$65k 4) I'm 23
Now, I moved out of mom & dad's house this year into an apartment. Buying all the furniture, etc. that I needed leaves me about $4k behind the 8-ball. But it's sitting on a 0% APR bank card, so who cares? I'm paying $1000/mo on it, so it'll be a bad memory soon enough...
I also owe another $10k on my car. (Nothing fancy, it's a 2000 Grand Am). That's at a 1.9% APR. I'd be better off putting the car payments into a CD or somesuch -- I'd _make_ money that way.
Debt isn't wholly a bad thing. If managed correctly, it can allow you to purchase things and spread the payments out, and come out ahead. The car is a perfect example. If I blew the $20k for the car right up front, boom, it's paid for, and that's that. But I'm out $20k. This way, if I pay them $500/mo and put some more away in a high-interest savings account or CD or somesuch, I'll _make_ money on the interest alone. Basically, it's like _they_ loaned _me_ the money.
Sure, the interest isn't that much, but hey, it's something:)
Having said all that, and knowing that I'm doing OK, I'm scared sh_tless. My job is secure, I don't worry about that. My company's having some record quarters recently. (No, we're not in the sin business -- we're an honest, legit company)
Anyway, what worries me are the 3 things that are looming:
1) An engagement ring; 2) A wedding; 3) A house after said wedding.
Heh. Wish I had more put away.... Some of us had to pay for our own college (and I'm glad I'm not swimming in loan debt.... My "state university" education is just as good as any big-name school, really. NJ has one of the best state higher-ed programs in the country.... )
Let's home my schoolteacher girlfriend can put some of her money away... but we all know what schoolteachers make!
Then it's time to beat your higher-ups with a cluestick. A Sun 414-1100-01 seems to work great.:)
The only thing that has a GUI in our data center are the 4 "administrator workstations" that we put in cabinets. We've got 4 Ultra 5's that have a GUI so we can run X to get multiple consoles at a time. I've got them using WindowMaker instead of CDE or Brokenwin though, so it's nice & simple.:) They're also on a private network with just them & the terminal servers, so it's about as secure as can be expected...
What kind of dumbass are you? Just because it apparently doesn't work for you - don't project your bad experiences onto anyone else.
I don't consider myself a dumbass at all. I'm a pretty damned competent sysadmin by trade, and all-around geek elsewise. Mozilla's a 3-year-late bloated piece of code that's got everyone's "pet features" in it. Blah. Now, I'll admit that 1.1 is a whole lot better than anything before it, but it's still big and buggy and has too many options. Elegance through simplicity. It's what makes Solaris beautiful; it's the same reason Aqua is beautiful too.
Mozilla may be a *teensy* bit slow (i've only used up to ver. 1.0.1 and my CPU is only 500Mhz) but I think its absolutely great! And Galeon is almost orgasmic. Get a clue before you post to a clue-full message board.
a) Do you realize you said your CPU is "only 500mhz"? Think about that.
For Chrissakes, Mozilla's slower than IBM Web Explorer was under OS/2 Warp 4 back in 1996! And I ran that on my 386DX/40. Sheesh.
And no web browser should be orgasmic. Ever. That's just wrong.... And if you think slashdot is a (clueful) message board, my sincerest condolences. It really wouldn't hurt you to spend some time in the sun, ya know...
... and I continue to download the nightly release every day
Why in the name of God's green earth can't we get a decent browser built?!
We can write software to manage checkbooks, to run space shuttles, to even serve more porn than the world ever needs.
But we can't get a decent browser out the door.
Why? Why is this?
ARGH!
Every one has its problems: Netscape (1.x through 4.x) - Buggy, never rendered quite right... IE - Sucktitude. Security holes you can drive a truck through. Mozilla - Bloated mess. Too many damned options & features. Typical open source project -- so many features, it doesn't work right for anyone. OmniWeb - has potential, compatible with 3 websites. Opera - small, lean, advertises all over the damned place. Compatible with a few more web pages than OmniWeb.
Why can't we get this right??
Sorry for the rant, it's just frustrating! I don't care much about the speed (isn't that why we have supersonic processors? So we can write sh_ty code and not worry?) but it needs to WORK. Reliably. Every time.
As it is, I have *3* browsers I use regularly. OmniWeb, IE and Mozilla. Some things render correctly in each....
ARGH! And now we're going to build another half-step child of Mozilla? Like the world needs _THAT_?
I am too... I'm a Unix sysadmin by trade, and I have to say that if I had to administer OSX as a server OS, I'd be going crazy. I use Solaris because it works and scales wonderfully. I'm about to get our first Superdome, so I guess I'll have to reacquaint myself with my 'ol friend Sam...
Anyway, back to the Mac -- like I said, if I had to admin it as a server, I'd be going crazy. But for my desktop, nothing beats it. When I get home from work, the last thing on the green Earth I want to do is have to fight with my computer. I just hit a key on the keyboard, and it wakes up from sleep instantly, ready to go. It's all those sort of little things that make the "whole solution" what it is ---
Mac OS X wouldn't be 1/1000th of what it is without the hardware integration. All those folks who kick and scream about 'apple needs to release osx for x86 or theyll die' obviously haven't ever used it.
It's the hardware, stupid. You absolutely can't get the OS to work that beautifully if you have to worry about supporting a Video Seven ISA board from 1989 in your OS... that sort of stuff is inherently unstable.
it's ok -- apple doesn't NEED more than 5% of the market anyway. What's BMW's market share?
It's so weakly encrypted, anyone with a cheap pentium can crack it real-time.
Companies in England & France have problems with industrial espionage -- people sit on each side of the channel with parabolic dishes and listen in on other companies' cell calls.
Who needs that?
At least CDMA requires military-grade equipment to crack in nearly-real-time.
You can keep your GSM crap-ola.
--NBVB
p.s. We can put twice the amount of calls in the same spectrum using CDMA vs. GSM. Also a Good Thing.
Sure, but if he gives that disc to Fred the Landscaper, then he has to worry if Fred's computer can read it or not.
DVD-R's and DVD+R's are incompatible with some drives in different ways.
If one out of every 3 discs that Bill gives to Fred works in Fred's computer, he's going to assume that Bill's machine is broken. Bill will think that too, not knowing that the difference is the DVD-R or DVD+R disc he used.
*sigh* we really need to pick one and stick with it.
You know, this really *isn't* good for DVD recording....
I can't wait for the day we standardize. Don't really care which wins the "war", but it needs to be one or the other.
Nobody is going to look at the label on a 50-pack in the store to see if it's a DVD-R or DVD+R. DVD recording won't take off till Bill the Accountant can walk into CompUSA and ask for a pack of DVD discs to put his stuff on without having to worry about brands and standards and all that jazz....
We just need to pick one and let the other one die off....
Of course, I'd +prefer+ it to be DVD-R, just 'cuz my Apple SuperDrive^W^WPioneer DVR-A03 is a DVD-R.:)
Yuck. I'm sure that $22k was for a real workstation, like an IBM zSeries or an HP Visualize or a Sun Blade 1k/2k (Or U60/U80).
I'm a sysadmin at a large company and I've got a Blade 1000 on my desk (with Sun's 24" LCD + XVR-1000 video board, thankyouverymuch:)
Anyway, the LCD is somewhat excessive, but the workstation certainly isn't. I'm constantly compiling code and doing testing on my desktop -- I need a good, reliable piece of hardware that'll function under stress.
A cheap Pee Cee running some Yugoslavian 14-year-old's idea of a kernel?
Forget it!
The other thing that nobody mentioned is that that $22,000 workstation will probably last 6 or 7 years. Not so with that cheap PC.
I had one developer who was still using his SPARCstation 10 until less than a month ago when we replaced it with a spare Ultra 2. Why? Because it still worked. All he used it for was basically an X display via SSH into the development boxes....
Would the Dell-of-the-week from 1991 still be useful today? Somehow I doubt it.
You get what you pay for. And sometimes, not even that.
Be careful with slight incompatibilities between DVI specs...
As an example, I have 5 pieces of equipment: 1) Apple Cinema Display 22" (ADC connector) 2) PowerMac G4/466 (GeForce2 MX video board w/ADC) 3) PowerBook G4/800 (w/DVI-I output) 4) Sun Blade 1000 w/XVR-1000 video board (w/DVI-D output) 5) Sun 24" LCD (1920x1200 native; DVI-D & VGA in)
Now, ANY of the equipment can drive my Apple Cinema Display fine (I have the Apple DVI-to-ADC converter also to support the PBook & SunBlade).
The Sun display looks GREAT on the Sun Blade, but it's awful on the PowerBook. The PBook supports its native resolution at 1920x1200, but I get all sorts of interference on the screen. Bits of "static" all over the display. If I use the VGA connector, it looks fine.
And it's not my display or PBook, because I've swapped both with other people @ my office and we all have this problem.
GRR... anyone know what the F___ is going on?
Why would I get that static? Now, an interesting point, the Sun docs for the 24" say that it only supports DVI-D and *NOT* DVI-I. The PBook is DVI-I. I thought that using a DVI-D cable with a machine with DVI-I output would act just like DVI-I (just ignoring the analog pins)?
The cable I'm using doesn't have the 4 analog pins around the "crosshair" so to speak.
Anyone have this LCD? Has anyone seen this behavior before?!?!
What's so special about the PS2/Xbox/GC that the DC doesn't do?
Answer: Nuttin.
And I have all the neat-o accessories for the DC.... the fishing controller, the keyboard & mouse, and the oft-accused-of-being-vapor Broadband Adapter!
Yes, I actually have one. And no, I didn't get it from eBay. I bought it directly from Sega when it was introduced:)
Not all of the patchwork networks support it! Care to take a guess at how many billing systems Verizon has? It's going to be a piece of cake to bill on behalf of 3rd party service/content providers, right? Oh but that won't be such a big problem, now that they have MS helping them. Sure.
OK, here's the deal... the "patchwork networks" as you say are all CDMA. VZW _had_ a TDMA network which was just shut off about 2 weeks ago. Now everything is CDMA, and that's all compatible. Some of the switches are Nortel, some are Motorola, but the requisite switches are being forklift-upgraded to enable 1XRTT everywhere. This will be completed by the end of the year.
And as for the billing systems....... it's gone from about 14 down to less than half that. In less than a year from now, there will be exactly two -- and that's where it will stay. Do you have any idea how hard it is to migration 30 million customers' data (and historical data) from 14 legacy applications (all of which were home-grown) into another one?
You really don't _want_ to put all of your customers on one billing system. I can't explain why, but two makes sense.
And "MS isn't helping them." The MSN/VZW agreement is for mobileweb, and nothing more. It's just marketing spew; MS has nothing to do with IS or IT.
Seriously. Trust me. All the billing applications run where billing applications belong.... Suffice it to say that MS couldn't even think about writing software for the right platform....
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1) I live in the NYC metro area (NJ actually) ... uhm ... rather large company ( > 40,000 employees)
...
:)
.... Some of us had to pay for our own college (and I'm glad I'm not swimming in loan debt.... My "state university" education is just as good as any big-name school, really. NJ has one of the best state higher-ed programs in the country.... )
2) I'm a Unix sysadmin for a
3) My salary is ~$65k
4) I'm 23
Now, I moved out of mom & dad's house this year into an apartment. Buying all the furniture, etc. that I needed leaves me about $4k behind the 8-ball. But it's sitting on a 0% APR bank card, so who cares? I'm paying $1000/mo on it, so it'll be a bad memory soon enough
I also owe another $10k on my car. (Nothing fancy, it's a 2000 Grand Am). That's at a 1.9% APR. I'd be better off putting the car payments into a CD or somesuch -- I'd _make_ money that way.
Debt isn't wholly a bad thing. If managed correctly, it can allow you to purchase things and spread the payments out, and come out ahead. The car is a perfect example. If I blew the $20k for the car right up front, boom, it's paid for, and that's that. But I'm out $20k. This way, if I pay them $500/mo and put some more away in a high-interest savings account or CD or somesuch, I'll _make_ money on the interest alone. Basically, it's like _they_ loaned _me_ the money.
Sure, the interest isn't that much, but hey, it's something
Having said all that, and knowing that I'm doing OK, I'm scared sh_tless. My job is secure, I don't worry about that. My company's having some record quarters recently. (No, we're not in the sin business -- we're an honest, legit company)
Anyway, what worries me are the 3 things that are looming:
1) An engagement ring;
2) A wedding;
3) A house after said wedding.
Heh. Wish I had more put away
Let's home my schoolteacher girlfriend can put some of her money away... but we all know what schoolteachers make!
--NBVB
Then it's time to beat your higher-ups with a cluestick. A Sun 414-1100-01 seems to work great.
The only thing that has a GUI in our data center are the 4 "administrator workstations" that we put in cabinets. We've got 4 Ultra 5's that have a GUI so we can run X to get multiple consoles at a time. I've got them using WindowMaker instead of CDE or Brokenwin though, so it's nice & simple.
BTW, if you need console management, try one of these: Digi PortServer CM32
It runs Embedded Linux and does lots of cool things with SSH and console output logging and all that jazz
--NBVB
Without any of the marketing spewage, Solaris _IS_ beautiful.
k -is. Just raw text files. Crack 'em open and go ... Beautiful.
:)
No SAM. No SMIT. No Kudzu/YaST/sysconfig/whatever-the-tool-of-the-wee
Now, is the GUI a mess? Yes, of course. Broken Windows? Ha. CDE? Yuck-o. But who installs that crud anyway?
Ya don't run GUI's on data center equipment
--NBVB
I don't consider myself a dumbass at all. I'm a pretty damned competent sysadmin by trade, and all-around geek elsewise. Mozilla's a 3-year-late bloated piece of code that's got everyone's "pet features" in it. Blah. Now, I'll admit that 1.1 is a whole lot better than anything before it, but it's still big and buggy and has too many options. Elegance through simplicity. It's what makes Solaris beautiful; it's the same reason Aqua is beautiful too.
a) Do you realize you said your CPU is "only 500mhz"? Think about that.
For Chrissakes, Mozilla's slower than IBM Web Explorer was under OS/2 Warp 4 back in 1996! And I ran that on my 386DX/40. Sheesh.
And no web browser should be orgasmic. Ever. That's just wrong.
--NBVB
Not true.
I paid the $$$ for OmniWeb because I think it's well worth it. I think the potential is there; I'd gladly pay for a browser that WORKS.
--NBVB
Why in the name of God's green earth can't we get a decent browser built?!
We can write software to manage checkbooks, to run space shuttles, to even serve more porn than the world ever needs.
But we can't get a decent browser out the door.
Why? Why is this?
ARGH!
Every one has its problems:
Netscape (1.x through 4.x) - Buggy, never rendered quite right
IE - Sucktitude. Security holes you can drive a truck through.
Mozilla - Bloated mess. Too many damned options & features. Typical open source project -- so many features, it doesn't work right for anyone.
OmniWeb - has potential, compatible with 3 websites.
Opera - small, lean, advertises all over the damned place. Compatible with a few more web pages than OmniWeb.
Why can't we get this right??
Sorry for the rant, it's just frustrating! I don't care much about the speed (isn't that why we have supersonic processors? So we can write sh_ty code and not worry?) but it needs to WORK. Reliably. Every time.
As it is, I have *3* browsers I use regularly. OmniWeb, IE and Mozilla. Some things render correctly in each
ARGH! And now we're going to build another half-step child of Mozilla? Like the world needs _THAT_?
--NBVB
I am too ... I'm a Unix sysadmin by trade, and I have to say that if I had to administer OSX as a server OS, I'd be going crazy. I use Solaris because it works and scales wonderfully. I'm about to get our first Superdome, so I guess I'll have to reacquaint myself with my 'ol friend Sam...
Anyway, back to the Mac -- like I said, if I had to admin it as a server, I'd be going crazy. But for my desktop, nothing beats it. When I get home from work, the last thing on the green Earth I want to do is have to fight with my computer. I just hit a key on the keyboard, and it wakes up from sleep instantly, ready to go. It's all those sort of little things that make the "whole solution" what it is ---
Mac OS X wouldn't be 1/1000th of what it is without the hardware integration. All those folks who kick and scream about 'apple needs to release osx for x86 or theyll die' obviously haven't ever used it.
It's the hardware, stupid. You absolutely can't get the OS to work that beautifully if you have to worry about supporting a Video Seven ISA board from 1989 in your OS... that sort of stuff is inherently unstable.
it's ok -- apple doesn't NEED more than 5% of the market anyway. What's BMW's market share?
Just FWIW, the official Sun-branded 2x4 is Part # 414-1100-01.
...
Just check next time you get an Enterprise or Sun Fire server on a pallet
--NBVB
We've got 5 Macs here... and an OSX Family Pack to boot ...
...
...
We have a desktop G4, a PowerBook, a G3 Blue-n-White, an iBook and an iMac
And yes, they all get used. The PBook and iBook are business machines, the rest are all home machines
--NBVB
So they want me to call it GNU/Linux because it has some GNU tools in it?
So what?
My Solaris box has GCC installed... does that becomg Sun GNU/Solaris?
Or Mac GNU/OS X?
Stallman can bite me.
Guys like him and Raymond are what make people like me use Solaris instead.
Oh, that, and the fact that I want a working kernel.
One who's MMU isn't written by a 14-year-old Czechoslovakian in his spare time away from popping zits and whacking off.
Now I understand why Mommy always told me to wear clean underwear & socks ...
:-) ;)
The underwear in case I get hit by a train, and the socks in case I have to swallow my own foot.
--NBVB
Bah. I screwed up the link.
The first one is the PB100, then the PB140 then the 170... you get the idea...
My condolances sir, but neither did the early PowerBooks:
........
PowerBook 100
PowerBook 100
PowerBook 100
Well, you get the idea
So, exactly how DOES your sock taste?
--NBVB
Who wants GSM?
It's so weakly encrypted, anyone with a cheap pentium can crack it real-time.
Companies in England & France have problems with industrial espionage -- people sit on each side of the channel with parabolic dishes and listen in on other companies' cell calls.
Who needs that?
At least CDMA requires military-grade equipment to crack in nearly-real-time.
You can keep your GSM crap-ola.
--NBVB
p.s. We can put twice the amount of calls in the same spectrum using CDMA vs. GSM. Also a Good Thing.
But where is the platform support?
...
Some of us have SPARCs on our desk. Or PA-RISC machines. Or RS6k's.
These were all supported with Communicator
NS7 is useless to me till I can run it on these platforms...
--NBVB
Have another drink on me.
Sure, but if he gives that disc to Fred the Landscaper, then he has to worry if Fred's computer can read it or not.
DVD-R's and DVD+R's are incompatible with some drives in different ways.
If one out of every 3 discs that Bill gives to Fred works in Fred's computer, he's going to assume that Bill's machine is broken. Bill will think that too, not knowing that the difference is the DVD-R or DVD+R disc he used.
*sigh* we really need to pick one and stick with it.
Standards are great. Everyone has one.
You know, this really *isn't* good for DVD recording ....
....
:)
I can't wait for the day we standardize. Don't really care which wins the "war", but it needs to be one or the other.
Nobody is going to look at the label on a 50-pack in the store to see if it's a DVD-R or DVD+R. DVD recording won't take off till Bill the Accountant can walk into CompUSA and ask for a pack of DVD discs to put his stuff on without having to worry about brands and standards and all that jazz....
We just need to pick one and let the other one die off
Of course, I'd +prefer+ it to be DVD-R, just 'cuz my Apple SuperDrive^W^WPioneer DVR-A03 is a DVD-R.
Sorry, I meant pSeries.
My mistake.
Yuck.
:)
I'm sure that $22k was for a real workstation, like an IBM zSeries or an HP Visualize or a Sun Blade 1k/2k (Or U60/U80).
I'm a sysadmin at a large company and I've got a Blade 1000 on my desk (with Sun's 24" LCD + XVR-1000 video board, thankyouverymuch
Anyway, the LCD is somewhat excessive, but the workstation certainly isn't. I'm constantly compiling code and doing testing on my desktop -- I need a good, reliable piece of hardware that'll function under stress.
A cheap Pee Cee running some Yugoslavian 14-year-old's idea of a kernel?
Forget it!
The other thing that nobody mentioned is that that $22,000 workstation will probably last 6 or 7 years. Not so with that cheap PC.
I had one developer who was still using his SPARCstation 10 until less than a month ago when we replaced it with a spare Ultra 2. Why? Because it still worked. All he used it for was basically an X display via SSH into the development boxes....
Would the Dell-of-the-week from 1991 still be useful today? Somehow I doubt it.
You get what you pay for. And sometimes, not even that.
--NBVB
Be careful with slight incompatibilities between DVI specs ...
As an example, I have 5 pieces of equipment:
1) Apple Cinema Display 22" (ADC connector)
2) PowerMac G4/466 (GeForce2 MX video board w/ADC)
3) PowerBook G4/800 (w/DVI-I output)
4) Sun Blade 1000 w/XVR-1000 video board (w/DVI-D output)
5) Sun 24" LCD (1920x1200 native; DVI-D & VGA in)
Now, ANY of the equipment can drive my Apple Cinema Display fine (I have the Apple DVI-to-ADC converter also to support the PBook & SunBlade).
The Sun display looks GREAT on the Sun Blade, but it's awful on the PowerBook. The PBook supports its native resolution at 1920x1200, but I get all sorts of interference on the screen. Bits of "static" all over the display. If I use the VGA connector, it looks fine.
And it's not my display or PBook, because I've swapped both with other people @ my office and we all have this problem.
GRR... anyone know what the F___ is going on?
Why would I get that static? Now, an interesting point, the Sun docs for the 24" say that it only supports DVI-D and *NOT* DVI-I. The PBook is DVI-I. I thought that using a DVI-D cable with a machine with DVI-I output would act just like DVI-I (just ignoring the analog pins)?
The cable I'm using doesn't have the 4 analog pins around the "crosshair" so to speak.
Anyone have this LCD? Has anyone seen this behavior before?!?!
--NBVB
Prior Art...
http://www-3.ibm.com/software/os/warp/swchoice/
--NBVB
OS/2 Forever! (Or until 1996, whichever comes first.)
This is why I kept my Dreamcast.
:)
What's so special about the PS2/Xbox/GC that the DC doesn't do?
Answer: Nuttin.
And I have all the neat-o accessories for the DC.... the fishing controller, the keyboard & mouse, and the oft-accused-of-being-vapor Broadband Adapter!
Yes, I actually have one. And no, I didn't get it from eBay. I bought it directly from Sega when it was introduced
--NBVB
OK, here's the deal... the "patchwork networks" as you say are all CDMA. VZW _had_ a TDMA network which was just shut off about 2 weeks ago. Now everything is CDMA, and that's all compatible. Some of the switches are Nortel, some are Motorola, but the requisite switches are being forklift-upgraded to enable 1XRTT everywhere. This will be completed by the end of the year.
And as for the billing systems
You really don't _want_ to put all of your customers on one billing system. I can't explain why, but two makes sense.
And "MS isn't helping them." The MSN/VZW agreement is for mobileweb, and nothing more. It's just marketing spew; MS has nothing to do with IS or IT.
Seriously. Trust me. All the billing applications run where billing applications belong.... Suffice it to say that MS couldn't even think about writing software for the right platform