I thought corel would do a lot better today given all the ipo hype. I tried for lnux at the bell but to a mere mortal.. 300 was a little to rich for my blood. So I quick jumped into Corel for the afternoon where it basically stayed flat:( well I made about 400$ but, it shoulda road the hype better IMHO. Oh well, theres always freemarket.com tommorrow.
I have seen reports of both. One from reuters saying that they moved trading up a day to thursday and others saying they should proce tommorrow and trade friday.
Does anyone know how I can find out or can speculate when they are going to be actually open for trading on the open market? I REALLY wanna buy into these guys. They look like a good investment and should help promote linux at the same time:) Still kicking myself (especially today) for not buying into redhat the first day. Up 17% today! What a crazy market..
Anyone else have an opinion on how the market might respond to a hardware company associated with linux? IMHO it should do well.. Yours? Speculation of course..
How y2k ready are your companies? I know we have a few old SunOS 4.1.3 systems that still need to be rebuilt otherwise our customer service people and a few customers wont be able to send faxs but, nothing that is gonna take us out of business.
We will probably have them done next week and then one more round of applying the latest y2k patches from sun.
Unfortunatly there is no way to masquerade netmeeting through a firewall unless you use a proxy specifically designed for it on the masquerading box.
I know of one such proxy but its nots freeware. I think its like 60 bucks to buy but it does work well. I forget the name right now though. If noone post it by the time I get home I will post the name and a web site for you to check it out.
Looks like i am now going to be forced to trademark my domainname before some loser comes along and does it I guess. Am I reading it right? I figured that since I am using the name in a commerical application on the web now then I should be protected but maybe not.
As you know, Amazon.com has filed suit against barnesandnoble.com, saying it has illegally copied Amazon.com's patented 1-Click technology.
The 1-Click feature securely stores billing and shipping information so that returning customers need only click their mouse once to buy a selected item. In recognition of the innovative and unique nature of the 1-Click technology, the U.S. Patent Office awarded Patent No. 5,960,411 to Amazon.com on September 28, 1999.
Amazon.com spent thousands of hours to develop the 1-Click process. As our founder, Jeff Bezos, has said, "The reason we have a patent system in this country is to encourage people to take these kinds of risks and make these kinds of investments for customers."
I hope you'll understand that we are unable to discuss this case any further as we are currently in litigation. Thank you for taking the time to share your views with us. Best regards,
SomeGuy (changed to protect the messenger) Amazon.com Earth's Biggest Selection http://www.amazon.com/
Basically I think this is such a load of horseshit but what do you expect from a big corporation beside marketing speak.
squishdot? What the heck is squishdot? Where can I find this? I am currently working on revamping the slash code.. well basically using it as an example to write a web board for my site. I would love to see other peoples modifications. The more examples the better:)
I have delt with command post in the past.. IMHO it works good for monitoring unix systems if you write enough custom scripts but beyond that it sucks.
My biggest concern is the people problem.. When people hear that people are stock piling cash and the reserves/national guard is being called out just in case.. I think the percautions people take will cause panic. Personally I expect the electricity to work and most everything else major but I am sure there will be plenty of smaller things that will break. Nothing that will ruin your day but it might make it inconvient in some aspects. All it takes is a small percent to panic and the rest will freak out.
But, how does one go about getting the first few crucial contracts, BEFORE you have a contracting history to draw from?
Just put your resume out on careermosaic or monsterboard and mention contracting. You will get more phone calls then you know what to do with. Generally when you start out its best to go with a consulting company where you are a w2 employee to ease the transition between employee and contractor. After you have gotten some market exposure then you can go 1099 if you want and run you own life totally. Finding gigs isnt tough these days if you live in a heavy IT area. I get more opportunities then I have time to persue usually. Also beware of overnight places.. make sure the consulting company you go with has been around a while and has a stable client base so they can keep you working. Consulting companies are a dime a dozen these days.. everything from small mom and pop shops to 10k plus consultants.
Why the heck do companies feel that because you are an employee they can exploit you to work tons of extra hours. This is a big reason people leave to go into consulting in the first place. I understand working a few extra hours here and there but if you are asking for 60+ hours a week then you need to hire more staff or increase your current staff's salaries to compensate. Hiring employees is not a way to get extra free labor. Lets face it.. we all work for pay. No pay..no work. When you abuse people you will lose them to those that will treat them right.
I have been a contractor for 3 1/2 years now.. I am gonna have to say that DEFINATLY you will get a LOT more experience and a much wider set of projects to work on as a consultant. You will be exposed to lots of different ways of doing things and lots of different environments. I have worked in Research, financial, isp's, etc.. I've done strictly server support, server and client, and client only.
Being a consultant forces you to learn and grow your skill set cause your always faced with new challenges. I would probably have no where near my current skill set if i was working for 1 company. Not to brag but generally I have the same skill set as someone who has been in the industry 10+ years after only 3 1/2. Its a great way to build a career fast!
Email me privately if you want to see my resume to see all the different projects I have been involved in and technologies I have learned.
If you use a benefit company you can get all that stuff pretax cause you are a w2 employee of the benefit company. You can also do it if you incorporate and set yourself up and an employee of your company. But thats a lot of headache IMHO but some people do it.
IBM got burned quite a few years ago when they were developing aix. They keep their contractors for a long time.. several years and got sued by the contractors arguing that they were essentially employees and they should get all the benefits of employees. The court agreed i believe. Since then you cant contract for more then 13 months at IBM anymore I think.. although this might have changed lately. Might be something to think about if you are keeping your contractors for a long time.
Just to provide some info for fellow consultants.. Yes I know this is off-topic..
If you are a 1099 contractor you dont have to deal with the whole taxes and non group benefit thing. My last contract I just signed up for a benefit company which deals with all the taxes, group benefits..etc. It cost me 200 bucks a month for their services and believe me.. its worth it. An example would be Gotham or church hill benefit. www.churchillbenefit.com I have no direct relationship to them.. just a happy customer.
Well I can give you a consultants and perm employee view of things. In my consulting travels throughout 2 dozen different BIG companies I generally find that consultants come in two varities Really good and Really crappy. Its easy to weed out the bad ones.. Generally a consultant knows that you can fire them at any moment so they generally dont slack off to much and work to make their bosses happy. Although consultants generally dont like to put up with a lot of corporate bullshit..at least the good ones.. They dont want to be involved in office politics, strict dress codes, and really crazy hours, etc. Generally people become consultants to get out of a low paying gig or they are tired of they previous mentioned items. Since we are in a big buyers market a consultant can leave at a drop of a hat as well. I generally get about a dozen recruiters calling me a week trying to get me away from my current gig. And the pay rises dramatically in a sort period of time. Consultants generally have very fresh skill sets and are used to working quickly to solve complex problems. They dont like being sucked into the corporate quagmire..aka zillions of approvals and such to buy a dam box of tapes.
Now a perm employee comes in two varities these days it seems: Those that have been consultants and are going back to perm employment and those that have always been perm employees. IMHO Perm employees tend to get lazy over the years and dont keep their skills as fresh as they should. Consultants who are going back to perm tend to have a much fresher skill set but eventualy will fall into the same habits as perm employees reguarding keeping their skills up.
If I was managing a development project that needed to ramp up quickly I would Hire perm a good technical lead and a good project manager. Then let the rest be consultants. You need someone who is perm to keep the project alive incase you have a mass exodus for some reason by your consultants or their is high turnover. Is this project going to require a lot of maintence over the years? You might want to hire more perms then I just suggested.. Its gonna take 1-3months for a consultant to get fully integrated into the environment and start performing fully. If you have a rapid turnover you may never get productive. You then need to ask why you are having high turnover.
If you do hire a bunch of consultants then pick the best out of them and make them attractive offers. Remember how much they are making hourly.. you will have to shoot high to get them away from consultanting. Maybe offer the consultants the possibility to turn perm if they work out well from the beginning. If they accept then make sure you offer training so they can keep those skill sets fresh. I wont join a company that doesnt offer at least 2 weeks a year of offsite training.
I dont like looking for a full time job by being tried out by companies but if they make an offer and I like the place I will generally consider it. So far over the years, 6 or 7 have made offers but none came even close (within 20k) of what I was making as a consultant and I wasnt ready to deal with corporate bull. Recently I just accepted an offer to go perm but it was the right company.. Great people, Great pay, Good work.
This is ALL my personal observations over the years. I would like to hear others..
Stevens was a wonderful writer that had a real knack for getting tough technical points across in easy to understand language. His books have been a big help to me over the years and I own a ton of them. They are worth every penny I paid for them. I think the computer industry just lost a wonderful teacher today.
You'll be missed..
As for slashdot... WTF is going on with this place lately??? Anyone notice over the past few weeks that the number of A$$holes has increased 10 fold? This article is about a great mans death and you F%ckheads have to consume over 100 posts bashing each other back and forth? "Suck my dick, Fuck you, No Fuck you" etc..etc..etc. I can live with the first post morons.. And even tolerate the occassional wacko. But recently its exploded. IF YOU DONT HAVE ANYTHING CONSTRUCTIVE TO ADD, STOP TYPING PLEASE! Your wasting all our bytes. Dam.. I gotta change my preferences... sheesh
Flame all ya want.. I am sure ya will..
Anyway.. Mr. Stevens you will be missed by many of us.
The theory is: If this is the NSA's key, and they have the other half of it. Then, it may be possible to get a user to download software and install it or break in in the middle of the night and install it. The software would be signed with the other half of the key. If the operating system accepts multiple keys for software installiation authorization beyond MS's key then it would accept the NSA key.
The nsa software could replace a current cryptographic module rendering that encryption method usless for security.
This could comprimise all sorts of data such as passwords, 128 bit web transactions, vpn networks, encrypted files..etc..etc. By replacing the software used to generate the encryption you can effectivily nullify the encryption.
You could get someone to install your special code in many ways..
A virus, active X is full of holes, hiding it inside popular software, breaking in and installing it yourself..etc..etc. This would be a very difficult attack for a cracker to perform as they would have to replace the nsa key first but it wouldnt be hard for the nsa to do it with all the power of the US goverment behind them. Of course noone has proven any of this yet.. give it some time, I am sure someone will come up with something to prove or deny this possibility.
Dam I guess this was all just fud and we should all go home and lead our simplistic lives again. Boy Microsoft vehemently denied it. I guess we all must be wrong.
Unfortunatly noone will ever know if their data is really safe unless someone can build an exploit that uses a known key pair (replacing the NSA key) to replace already installed cryptographic modules with vulnerable ones. Sounds like a project:)
Slashdot Mirror
Your signature is number 00006075
No.. the ip block that they had is owned by harvard.net which is most likely their isp.
PHPslash? Where can I find this?
Thanks.. Mike (totally offtopic btw:)
I thought corel would do a lot better today given
all the ipo hype. I tried for lnux at the bell but
to a mere mortal.. 300 was a little to rich for my blood. So I quick jumped into Corel for the afternoon where it basically stayed flat:( well I
made about 400$ but, it shoulda road the hype better IMHO. Oh well, theres always freemarket.com tommorrow.
Mike
I have seen reports of both. One from reuters
saying that they moved trading up a day to thursday and others saying they should proce tommorrow and trade friday.
Anyone know for sure?
Malice95
Slashdot.org has a pending trademark application on the name.
Mike
Does anyone know how I can find out or can speculate when they are going to be actually open for trading on the open market? I REALLY wanna buy into these guys. They look like a good investment and should help promote linux at the same time:)
Still kicking myself (especially today) for not buying into redhat the first day. Up 17% today!
What a crazy market..
Anyone else have an opinion on how the market might respond to a hardware company associated with linux? IMHO it should do well.. Yours? Speculation of course..
Malice95
Not withstanding the sillyness of this movie.
How y2k ready are your companies? I know we have a few old SunOS 4.1.3 systems that still need to be rebuilt otherwise our customer service people and a few customers wont be able to send faxs but, nothing that is gonna take us out of business.
We will probably have them done next week and then one more round of applying the latest y2k patches from sun.
How are ya all doing?
Mike
Unfortunatly there is no way to masquerade
netmeeting through a firewall unless you use
a proxy specifically designed for it on the masquerading box.
I know of one such proxy but its nots freeware.
I think its like 60 bucks to buy but it does work well. I forget the name right now though. If noone
post it by the time I get home I will post the
name and a web site for you to check it out.
Malice95
Looks like i am now going to be forced to trademark my domainname before some loser comes along and does it I guess. Am I reading it right?
I figured that since I am using the name in a commerical application on the web now then I should be protected but maybe not.
Malice95
Dear Michael,
Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com.
As you know, Amazon.com has filed suit against barnesandnoble.com,
saying it has illegally copied Amazon.com's patented 1-Click
technology.
The 1-Click feature securely stores billing and shipping information
so that returning customers need only click their mouse once to buy a
selected item. In recognition of the innovative and unique nature of
the 1-Click technology, the U.S. Patent Office awarded Patent
No. 5,960,411 to Amazon.com on September 28, 1999.
Amazon.com spent thousands of hours to develop the 1-Click process.
As our founder, Jeff Bezos, has said, "The reason we have a patent
system in this country is to encourage people to take these kinds of
risks and make these kinds of investments for customers."
I hope you'll understand that we are unable to discuss this case any
further as we are currently in litigation. Thank you for taking the
time to share your views with us. Best regards,
SomeGuy (changed to protect the messenger)
Amazon.com
Earth's Biggest Selection
http://www.amazon.com/
Basically I think this is such a load of horseshit but what do you expect from a big corporation beside marketing speak.
Malice95
squishdot? What the heck is squishdot? Where can
I find this? I am currently working on revamping the slash code.. well basically using it as an example to write a web board for my site. I would
love to see other peoples modifications. The more examples the better:)
Thanks.. Malice95
I have delt with command post in the past.. IMHO
it works good for monitoring unix systems if you
write enough custom scripts but beyond that it sucks.
Malice95
Comeone RedHat! where's the balls.. At least set
up a webcam for us poor smucks in the northeast
to check this thing out:) J/K
Go home.. board up.. Hope everything stays safe
down there. Can't have my favorite distro and its
staff washed out to sea can we.
Malice95
My biggest concern is the people problem.. When people hear that people are stock piling cash and the reserves/national guard is being called out just in case.. I think the percautions people take will cause panic. Personally I expect the electricity to work and most everything else major but I am sure there will be plenty of smaller things that will break. Nothing that will ruin your day but it might make it inconvient in some aspects. All it takes is a small percent
to panic and the rest will freak out.
Malice95
But, how does one go about getting the first few crucial contracts, BEFORE you have a contracting history to draw from?
Just put your resume out on careermosaic or monsterboard and mention contracting. You will get more phone calls then you know what to do with. Generally when you start out its best to go with a consulting company where you are a w2 employee to ease the transition between employee and contractor. After you have gotten some market exposure then you can go 1099 if you want and run you own life totally. Finding gigs isnt tough these days if you live in a heavy IT area. I get more opportunities then I have time to persue usually. Also beware of overnight places.. make sure the consulting company you go with has been around a while and has a stable client base so they can keep you working. Consulting companies are a dime a dozen these days.. everything from small mom and pop shops to 10k plus consultants.
* Usually no motivation for late hours. *
Why the heck do companies feel that because you are an employee they can exploit you to work tons of extra hours. This is a big reason people leave to go into consulting in the first place. I understand working a few extra hours here and there but if you are asking for 60+ hours a week then you need to hire more staff or increase your current staff's salaries to compensate. Hiring employees is not a way to get extra free labor. Lets face it.. we all work for pay. No pay..no work. When you abuse people you will lose them to those that will treat them right.
Malice95
I have been a contractor for 3 1/2 years now.. I am gonna have to say that DEFINATLY you will get a LOT more experience and a much wider set of projects to work on as a consultant. You will be exposed to lots of different ways of doing things and lots of different environments. I have worked in Research, financial, isp's, etc.. I've done strictly server support, server and client, and client only.
Being a consultant forces you to learn and grow your skill set cause your always faced with new challenges. I would probably have no where near my current skill set if i was working for 1 company. Not to brag but generally I have the same skill set as someone who has been in the industry 10+ years after only 3 1/2. Its a great way to build a career fast!
Email me privately if you want to see my resume to see all the different projects I have been involved in and technologies I have learned.
Malice95
If you use a benefit company you can get all that
stuff pretax cause you are a w2 employee of the benefit company. You can also do it if you incorporate and set yourself up and an employee
of your company. But thats a lot of headache IMHO
but some people do it.
Malice95
IBM got burned quite a few years ago when they were developing aix. They keep their contractors
for a long time.. several years and got sued by the contractors arguing that they were essentially employees and they should get all the benefits of employees. The court agreed i believe. Since then you cant contract for more then 13 months at IBM anymore I think.. although this might have changed lately. Might be something to think about if you are keeping your contractors for a long time.
Malice95
Just to provide some info for fellow consultants..
Yes I know this is off-topic..
If you are a 1099 contractor you dont have to
deal with the whole taxes and non group benefit thing. My last contract I just signed up for
a benefit company which deals with all the taxes,
group benefits..etc. It cost me 200 bucks a month
for their services and believe me.. its worth it.
An example would be Gotham or church hill benefit. www.churchillbenefit.com I have no direct
relationship to them.. just a happy customer.
Malice95
Well I can give you a consultants and perm employee view of things. In my consulting travels throughout 2 dozen different BIG companies I generally find that consultants come in two varities Really good and Really crappy. Its ..aka zillions of approvals and such to buy a dam box of tapes.
easy to weed out the bad ones.. Generally a consultant knows that you can fire them at any moment so they generally dont slack off to much and work to make their bosses happy. Although consultants generally dont like to put up with a
lot of corporate bullshit..at least the good ones.. They dont want to be involved in office politics, strict dress codes, and really crazy hours, etc. Generally people become consultants to get out of a low paying gig or they are tired of they previous mentioned items. Since we are in a big buyers market a consultant can leave at a drop of a hat as well. I generally get about a dozen recruiters calling me a week trying to get me away from my current gig. And the pay rises dramatically in a sort period of time. Consultants generally have very fresh skill sets and are used to working quickly to solve complex problems. They dont like being sucked into the corporate quagmire
Now a perm employee comes in two varities these days it seems: Those that have been consultants and are going back to perm employment and those that have always been perm employees. IMHO Perm employees tend to get lazy over the years and dont keep their skills as fresh as they should. Consultants who are going back to perm tend to have a much fresher skill set but eventualy will fall into the same habits as perm employees reguarding keeping their skills up.
If I was managing a development project that needed to ramp up quickly I would Hire perm a good technical lead and a good project manager. Then let the rest be consultants. You need someone who is perm to keep the project alive incase you have a mass exodus for some reason by your consultants or their is high turnover. Is this project going to require a lot of maintence over the years? You might want to hire more perms then I just suggested.. Its gonna take 1-3months for a consultant to get fully integrated into the environment and start performing fully. If you have a rapid turnover you may never get productive. You then need to ask why you are having high turnover.
If you do hire a bunch of consultants then pick the best out of them and make them attractive offers. Remember how much they are making hourly.. you will have to shoot high to get them away from consultanting. Maybe offer the consultants the possibility to turn perm if they work out well from the beginning. If they accept then make sure you offer training so they can keep those skill sets fresh. I wont join a company that doesnt offer at least 2 weeks a year of offsite training.
I dont like looking for a full time job by being tried out by companies but if they make an offer and I like the place I will generally consider it. So far over the years, 6 or 7 have made offers but none came even close (within 20k) of what I was making as a consultant and I wasnt ready to deal with corporate bull. Recently I just accepted an offer to go perm but it was the right company.. Great people, Great pay, Good work.
This is ALL my personal observations over the years. I would like to hear others..
Malice95
Yea I know the spelling sucks.. I'm tired..
Stevens was a wonderful writer that had a real
knack for getting tough technical points across
in easy to understand language. His books have
been a big help to me over the years and I own
a ton of them. They are worth every penny I paid
for them. I think the computer industry just lost
a wonderful teacher today.
You'll be missed..
As for slashdot... WTF is going on with this
place lately??? Anyone notice over the past few
weeks that the number of A$$holes has increased
10 fold? This article is about a great mans death
and you F%ckheads have to consume over 100 posts
bashing each other back and forth? "Suck my dick,
Fuck you, No Fuck you" etc..etc..etc.
I can live with the first post morons..
And even tolerate the occassional wacko. But
recently its exploded. IF YOU DONT HAVE ANYTHING
CONSTRUCTIVE TO ADD, STOP TYPING PLEASE! Your
wasting all our bytes. Dam.. I gotta change my
preferences... sheesh
Flame all ya want.. I am sure ya will..
Anyway.. Mr. Stevens you will be missed by many of
us.
Malice95
The theory is:
If this is the NSA's key, and they have the other
half of it. Then, it may be possible to get a user
to download software and install it or break in
in the middle of the night and install it. The
software would be signed with the other half of
the key. If the operating system accepts multiple
keys for software installiation authorization
beyond MS's key then it would accept the NSA key.
The nsa software could replace a current
cryptographic module rendering that encryption
method usless for security.
This could comprimise all sorts of data such
as passwords, 128 bit web transactions, vpn
networks, encrypted files..etc..etc. By replacing
the software used to generate the encryption you
can effectivily nullify the encryption.
You could get someone to install your special
code in many ways..
A virus, active X is full of holes, hiding it
inside popular software, breaking in and
installing it yourself..etc..etc. This would
be a very difficult attack for a cracker to
perform as they would have to replace the nsa
key first but it wouldnt be hard for the nsa
to do it with all the power of the US goverment
behind them. Of course noone has proven any of
this yet.. give it some time, I am sure someone
will come up with something to prove or deny this
possibility.
Malice95
Dam I guess this was all just fud and we should
all go home and lead our simplistic lives again.
Boy Microsoft vehemently denied it. I guess we all
must be wrong.
Unfortunatly noone will ever know if their data is
really safe unless someone can build an exploit
that uses a known key pair (replacing the NSA key)
to replace already installed cryptographic modules
with vulnerable ones. Sounds like a project:)
These are scary times we live in..
Malice95