ah what the hell, time to burn some karma.
<dot-bomb rant>
I live in Canada, and I can tell you why I think the dot coms went under. Apart from stupid dog shit retailers - buying stuff online is WAY too expensive. See, I go to a site and toss something (eg, a hard drive) into my shopping cart, then check it out, and total it up. Woooeee! Check out that exchange rate on the CDN dollar, cost of my purchase just jumped up 1.5 times! Leading to Problem 1) Currency exchange shock turns me away from etailers.
After my heart stops palpitating from the exchange shock, I then get to choose my delivery method, ooohboy! This is FUN, add $50 US bucks to overnight my purchase over the border with tariffs and more penalites ( no way to predict the cost of that, usually another $50 bucks though), or add $15 bucks US to have it delivered by ground over the border ( tariffs and taxes still apply) that could take up to 6 weeks. Leading to Problem 2) Border tariffs and taxes, plus wait time make "instant online purchasing" not so instant. So much for Free Trade, and NAFTA. Canadians did not want it, and I honestly do not see the benifits.
All of a sudden, that hard drive price doesn't look so good anymore. It is cheaper, faster, and better for my local economy to just wait until Monday morning and hop down to my local computer shop and get the hard drive there.
</rant>
As for 3G, so many companies are pushing competing technologies out the door trying to be first and corner the market, that I, as a consumer of these products, do not know what is what. HDTV, Digital Cable, Sattelite TV; DRM, SDMI, Burn-proof CDs, Rip-proof CDs. DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD-whateverthehellHPjustimplementedDVD; and on and on , now my cellphone can interface with my airline luggage and book me a seat in a Milan bistro using GPS, but my damn PDA cannot handle the interference from my cordless phone, and why can't someone jsut put out a useful webpad?!?
I would rather use a webpad that can do all that a low-end PC can, that is the size of an etch-a sketch. Phone, pager, email, simple games, web, surf all for $500 bucks. But no, every company with a R&D dept. is out there doing there own little Token Ring proprietary-like shit in the personal appliance market.
I'm not buying a damn cell-phone with all that useless shit, or a goddamn mp3 player that takes digital pictures! Too many products out there right now have a whizzbang secondary purpose slapped on top of their primary role.
The consumer communications and entertainement market right now is kind of like attaching a hot-plate to your PC so you can cook Ramen noodles and still not miss a beat in your Quake]|[.
Neat, but not neccessary.
I would define a PAN as anything that is within arms reach to a few steps away, usually sans wires. Think printers, mice, keyboards.
A LAN OTOH, is wired, and is for devices in the same or other rooms, connecting devices such as computers, network printers, and possibly access points to external networks.
It's a matter of scale, in both data transfer and
the distance.
PAN = ~6ft. radius
LAN = House, Office, Small campus
Given that the people most likely to participate in an open-source project are also users of the application being worked on, what would happen if the customers for a software product actually participated in its design and creation?
Umm, I for one would not want to pay a large corp. for the privilege of using software I helped to create, and watch the money go to them. Exactly what would I be paying for?
Perhaps I misunderstand, as this would work in a corporate environment, where staff helped out, but surely not for a commercial product?
I think open-source is great and all, but if your programmers are all coding away, and the code is released freely, revenue and profit is generated by service contracts and support, then a) how are your coders paid? Surely not the salaries and recognition of the present day. Will coding be reduced to a more mundane role? Lots of CS grads these days. Hell I don't even have to be a CS grad to throw something up on the net b) what about your competition? They will be able to put out a duplicate or improved product lickety-split.
-- By the way , these questions are not intended to address the morality of OSS ( I don't want to get into that), but the financial aspects, which are what will take down MS, as only a viable business solution ala IBM will be able to provide the infrastructure to maintain that sort of venture.--
See? This is exactly what I was referring to in my first post. The parent was modded OT.
No Shit!
Anybody can see that it is OT, as are both my posts. So what? Whoever modded the above as offtopic needs slap. You just pissed away a mod point to state the obvious. About as useful as telling everyone the sky is blue.
Hey! I was actually thinking that same thing last night ( moderators having to justify their reason to moderate).
I've noticed that a lot of moderation lately has focused on modding down, not up. Browsing at -1, you see alot of ACs and trolls modded to -1. I have to ask, for what?!? If I am browsing at 0 or below, maybe I'm looking for a good chuckle? Maybe ACs sometimes have something insightful to say, even though it conflicts with the status quo. Some of those trolls are pretty funny, simply because they are so absurd. Perhaps my sense of humour is juvenile, but I honestly cannot see the point in the following moderator trends:
Posts that blatantly state that they are offtopic, or the author puts OT or similiar in the subject, then being modded as offtopic. Can you not think for yourself? The author knows its OT, we know, you know, so why waste the mod points then? Save them for modding someone UP!
The continous modding of ACs and trolls down. From what I've seen most of these are posted at 0, and most hardcore slashdotees don't browse at 0 anyway, hate ACs and will generally never see the posts. Again, why waste the mod points? Your decision to toss away your points on obvious trolling or flamebait is detrimental to the conversations here. Some good posts get ignored, and others dissapear altogether.
I agree with the above poster, that moderators should have to submit a brief reason for their decision to moderate a comment. Then the reason should accompany the post during meta-mod, so that when others meta-mod, we will understand the frame of mind the moderator was in when they made the call.
That way when someone is about to piss away a point by modding some AC who posted "linus is an ass clown Wh007!", they might stop for a moment to think about their decision, and how utterly obvious it is that they are being FUCKING LAZY. Perhaps then they will move on and search for a proper post to mod.
I'm sure that eventually internet appliances will be a good market item, but not today.
If you can provide a *hackable* mp3 storage device (or an encrypted porn archiver!;) for a really cheap price in the same ballpark as a portable cd player or high-end calculator, then you have a chance in the market.
I think that soon though, appliances will become the norm, and the PC will fade somewhat. The home PC market is predominantly a first-world thing. That market is saturated and there is no killer app requiring 3GHZ monsters. I think that the powerful PDA's, instant messaging cellphones, PC-like gaming consoles, and Gigabit networked digital set-top boxes providing hi-def cable TV and internet access will be more in line with consumer needs and the consumer retail market.
Think about it. How many PC's have you gone through? How many (disposable?) boomboxes and walkmans have you gone through? That is the kind of semi-consistent market that I imagine doesn't suffer the same vagaries of the PC OEMs.
I am a complete asshole and want to waste space on your front page to see if I can completely fuck up my buddie's server. It will be kewl.
Could you please arrange to have everyone click on this link?
Yep. Everyone has already said it. This article is biased, slanted, pro-*nix, anti-MS FUD. Whatever valid points this clown has made, they are over-shadowed by his blatent Linux trumpeting.
The scenario is this: Most universities, you buy what they tell you to; or beg, borrow steal someone elses.
Most businesses, you use what they tell you to. You don't know the software/hardware? No job for you. Unless they are willing to train (not likely).
The decision to use a particular solution, I imagine goes like this:
Suit: We need to save money in IT. Any ideas?
Unix SA: Excuse me, but I could implement this really stable--
Suit: Will our staff have to learn anything new?
Unix SA: Well, yes but-
Suit: Get me the MS rep.
MS rep: We can save you money. Let me get the bill for dinner.
Suit: We are upgrading to Windows 2000/XP/NET
1 year later....
Suit: Productivity is down. Revenues are down. We need to save money in IT. How much is that UNIX guy costing us? WHAT?!? He's fired.
MSCE: Dude! I just got a job making $40K!!!
Also add the fact that if you lose your *nix admin due to suicide, murder, anthrax, fraud, or goatporn, you are going to have a hell of a time replacing them. Not so with a cookie cutter MSCE.
All in all, Unix is in the backroom , windows is on the desktop, users need consistency, and all is good and right with IT. But you're still a drain on revenue;)
Aside from not believing that a "new economy" exists at all, (just a new way to leverage the old ways), I disagree with you about geeks in power.
I doubt very much that these "geeks" are completely altruistic. Geeks play FPS games, and fantasise about goblins and shit (LOTR if you don't believe me). They like fake tits on their fake chics at trade shows. I for one, would be a complete sonofabitch given an inch of influence and power (think cocaine and hookers 24/7:)
I have a sneaky suspicion that the folks at ICANN, WIPO and other internet regulatory bodies are academic/business people who perform nobly enough but are very intimately involved in their own financial affairs and those of colleagues.
Aren't most oversight commitees, boards and coalitions made up of like-minded people? Their purpose is to make more money and consolidate their influence.
Last I heard, Murray-Gell-Mann (Nobel laureate for Physics and member of the Los Alamos Group) was a chairman/advisor/stockholder of some fiber-optic broadband provider.
I just tried to agree with you but the damn "invalid keys" crap poppped up.
Anyways I just wanted to say that the legal argument about "lack-of-web-presence" is complete BS and I'm glad that the WIPO saw through it.
I just wonder what the outcome would be had Mr. Maggi not stepped forward, or the AspenGroves family waited to register (innocently) after the SW company's IPO?
I hardly ever call any tech support people, I assume the problem is local until I know otherwise. I hope you honestly do that, I really do. In which case I apologise for my earlier harshness.
And the modem I mentioned is a Speedstreem DSL business class modem with four internal RJ-45 network ports. What would you call it if not a router? I would call it a Speedstreem DSL business class modem;)
A linux box running ipchains and NAT isn't a router either. A router, last time I checked , routes traffic, it does not do DHCP or NAT or any of that. It routes.
If you are on a limited budget, you could probably increase the frequency and size of those bonuses by migrating your backend systems to a *nix variant. If the environement is extremely heterogenous, then you may not be relying on Win2K Active Directory. Which meands that a *nix solution is doable as your environement is not tied to a flimsy MS implementation. In that case ( as you said about an NT4 PDC ) why not use Samba and have it do authentication? Get rid of NT4. No more licenses, nor more service packs and hotfixes, no worries about Nimda. Just a suggestion...
Ever heard of SSH? If your techies are too lazy to use a command line, then setup X window sessions and VNC. Although not as secure as a CLI SSH session, I'm sure you could tunnel those over a VPN or through SSH as well.
Dont' ask me how though, as I've never had to do it. I'm a command line admin freak myself.
Mmmm, tasty flamebait! This, IMO, is great for small companies with no budget to hire you expensive unix sysadmins.
Yep, it's always a good idea for a company to pay more for overpriced, unstable, server solutions, and less for knowledgeable sysadmins. Saves money in the long run right?
I mean, why pay nothing for your server solutions, and then a little bit more per annum for someone who actually knows what they're doing?!? What a silly concept.
Imagine if cars and buildings were built with the same mentality. Buy substandard overpriced materials and get a bunch of monkeys to slap the pieces together in hopes that it fits into what looks like a a car.
Make superior UNIX technology invisible to me and make it work seamlessly in a Win32 environment,... That sounds more like a user talking than an admin. Keep it invisible? What the hell are you smoking? Maybe you like your pointy-clicky push button Website and network share set-up, but I'll take a text file over that shit any day. There is nothing more aggravating that having to jump through 30 dialog/pop-ups to adjust the packet filtering on a newly opened port. ... and I'll buy it, learn how to manage it, recommend it to my friends who are in systems management, and tell the world about it.
Don't just learn how to manage it, understand it.
Yep asshole I guess I haven't seen 95. Go crawl back under your rock troll. I explicitly stated my first box ran on 95, used it for 2 years. I regularly support all versions of MS Windows as part of my job. You don't need to tell me about 95. If you want to bitch about it not having a bunch of obscure *nix tools that half of the public ( the "populace" I keep referring to, you know, the ones who won't use Linux precisely because of people with attitudes like yourself) wouldnt even know how to use even today, go find another thread.
Actually, in '81 our class got to regularly play with turtle graphics on Apple ]['s, our house owned a TRS-80, I learned some BASIC, and in the late 80's our classes used both PC's and the "new" Macs. My high school was grossly underfunded however, and only had terminals running WordPerfect.
Is my perspective getting better?
Well, I was happily beating my meat in my bedroom in 92. Lucky you, you won the age lottery.
You're right, My first OS was Win95. In fact, I bought my first box in 1998. Yep, and I spent 3 years in a shitty high school in Alberta, Canada (90-93) doing data entry and spreadsheets to fulfill my extra credits. Believe you me, computers were not high on the list in our curriculuum. So, does that mean I lack perspective? Perhaps. But alot of today's CS students sure as well would not be enrolled had it not been for the explosive internet boom of $YEAR.
What I was trying to illustrate is that prior to the advent of one-stop easy access internet and email embodied by W95, most of the populace (the people I am in contact with the most, hence my perspective)played games on their nintendo/PS, and wrote reports and spreadsheets on their PC. The home PC did not have the impact it has today. The masses bought computers by the millions - lowering the price, infusing R&D
and creating more opportunities for more programmers to create a variety of apps that us point/click monkeys assist others to use.
Now maybe YOU might have been in the same place, doing the same work, without Big Bill, but I would not have. I would still be staring into a frigging amber monitor plunkin on the same numeric keypad for 8 hrs/day. Now I get to repeat my "create a new dial-up connection" mantra 8 hrs/day.
Hmm, perhaps not such a good tradeoff....
MS is shady at best. However, most people on this board probably would be without jobs had it not been for W95. That really brought the PC to the home consumer, and the Internet to the masses. No Linux distro to date could do the same even now. (That's not a flame or a troll, it's my opinion. It belongs here because we are discussing technology not religion).
Now as for tech support, some AC below cried about tech guys giving bad support. That's not bad support. That's survival. After dealing with customers long enough, the problems are all the same, and the solution invariably simplifies. I used to bend over backwards and set up every goddamn dial-up/internet/email thing to make their point and click online experience easier, less intimidating and convenient. No more. I burnt out. Even windows is too hard for people to use. It's not bad support, it's tailoring the solution to the LCD. If you cant get your mail and haven't even bothered to try any other internet activity to isolate the cause yourslef, and call me within 2 seconds of arriving from your vacation and your mail flunks, then you all you wil get from me is a request to try agin and call back.
And I'm sorry you got modded as flamebait, apparently there are only two topics on/. -- discussion that evangelises Linux and discussion that disparages MS.
I would prefer to play Sysadmin on *nix, but I would loathe to do *nix helldesk for clueless lusers.
Godammit! If you are really concerned about security (and you're not a money grubbing opportunistic cocksucker), and you want me held accountable for any shady crop-dusting I do, then just fucking admit that you think a barcode behind my ear is a good idea. Anything less than a (mostly) unalterable tattoo or implant is just a half-assed attempt to capitalize on fear and uncertainty.
Any talk of cards, numbers or biometrics (retina, facial recog) is bullshit. True identity security can only be implemented by a global org that would uniquely identify individuals according to nationality by way of a permanent ID method that would KILL you if altered or removed. Only then will you know who your neighbour is.
So to anyone wishing for true identity security, consider what your life will be like when the Central Repository crashes and you are no longer in the database. Oops, you never existed. You are now an identity Nomad. Have a Nice Day.
Slashdot Mirror
ah what the hell, time to burn some karma.
<dot-bomb rant>
I live in Canada, and I can tell you why I think the dot coms went under. Apart from stupid dog shit retailers - buying stuff online is WAY too expensive. See, I go to a site and toss something (eg, a hard drive) into my shopping cart, then check it out, and total it up. Woooeee! Check out that exchange rate on the CDN dollar, cost of my purchase just jumped up 1.5 times! Leading to Problem 1) Currency exchange shock turns me away from etailers.
After my heart stops palpitating from the exchange shock, I then get to choose my delivery method, ooohboy! This is FUN, add $50 US bucks to overnight my purchase over the border with tariffs and more penalites ( no way to predict the cost of that, usually another $50 bucks though), or add $15 bucks US to have it delivered by ground over the border ( tariffs and taxes still apply) that could take up to 6 weeks. Leading to Problem 2) Border tariffs and taxes, plus wait time make "instant online purchasing" not so instant. So much for Free Trade, and NAFTA. Canadians did not want it, and I honestly do not see the benifits.
All of a sudden, that hard drive price doesn't look so good anymore. It is cheaper, faster, and better for my local economy to just wait until Monday morning and hop down to my local computer shop and get the hard drive there.
</rant>
As for 3G, so many companies are pushing competing technologies out the door trying to be first and corner the market, that I, as a consumer of these products, do not know what is what. HDTV, Digital Cable, Sattelite TV; DRM, SDMI, Burn-proof CDs, Rip-proof CDs. DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD-whateverthehellHPjustimplementedDVD; and on and on , now my cellphone can interface with my airline luggage and book me a seat in a Milan bistro using GPS, but my damn PDA cannot handle the interference from my cordless phone, and why can't someone jsut put out a useful webpad?!?
I would rather use a webpad that can do all that a low-end PC can, that is the size of an etch-a sketch. Phone, pager, email, simple games, web, surf all for $500 bucks. But no, every company with a R&D dept. is out there doing there own little Token Ring proprietary-like shit in the personal appliance market.
I'm not buying a damn cell-phone with all that useless shit, or a goddamn mp3 player that takes digital pictures! Too many products out there right now have a whizzbang secondary purpose slapped on top of their primary role.
The consumer communications and entertainement market right now is kind of like attaching a hot-plate to your PC so you can cook Ramen noodles and still not miss a beat in your Quake]|[.
Neat, but not neccessary.
I would define a PAN as anything that is within arms reach to a few steps away, usually sans wires. Think printers, mice, keyboards.
A LAN OTOH, is wired, and is for devices in the same or other rooms, connecting devices such as computers, network printers, and possibly access points to external networks.
It's a matter of scale, in both data transfer and
the distance.
PAN = ~6ft. radius
LAN = House, Office, Small campus
"without paying absorbadent fees"
hmm. how about exhorbitant?
Good grief, man, where did you learn to spell?!?
ambiseos programer - ambitious programmer
take the rains - take the reigns
BWWAAHHHAAHHA-HAHAHAHAHA!
Did you see that utterly useless and uninformative Flash animation? ROFL!
Ouch, my sides....
Microsoft enjoys what economists call a "natural monopoly."
Natural hmm?
Article Warning: Delusional understatement imminent.
Given that the people most likely to participate in an open-source project are also users of the application being worked on, what would happen if the customers for a software product actually participated in its design and creation?
Umm, I for one would not want to pay a large corp. for the privilege of using software I helped to create, and watch the money go to them. Exactly what would I be paying for?
Perhaps I misunderstand, as this would work in a corporate environment, where staff helped out, but surely not for a commercial product?
I think open-source is great and all, but if your programmers are all coding away, and the code is released freely, revenue and profit is generated by service contracts and support, then a) how are your coders paid? Surely not the salaries and recognition of the present day. Will coding be reduced to a more mundane role? Lots of CS grads these days. Hell I don't even have to be a CS grad to throw something up on the net b) what about your competition? They will be able to put out a duplicate or improved product lickety-split.
-- By the way , these questions are not intended to address the morality of OSS ( I don't want to get into that), but the financial aspects, which are what will take down MS, as only a viable business solution ala IBM will be able to provide the infrastructure to maintain that sort of venture.--
mod away
See? This is exactly what I was referring to in my first post. The parent was modded OT.
No Shit!
Anybody can see that it is OT, as are both my posts. So what? Whoever modded the above as offtopic needs slap. You just pissed away a mod point to state the obvious. About as useful as telling everyone the sky is blue.
Hey! I was actually thinking that same thing last night ( moderators having to justify their reason to moderate).
I've noticed that a lot of moderation lately has focused on modding down, not up. Browsing at -1, you see alot of ACs and trolls modded to -1. I have to ask, for what?!? If I am browsing at 0 or below, maybe I'm looking for a good chuckle? Maybe ACs sometimes have something insightful to say, even though it conflicts with the status quo. Some of those trolls are pretty funny, simply because they are so absurd. Perhaps my sense of humour is juvenile, but I honestly cannot see the point in the following moderator trends:
Posts that blatantly state that they are offtopic, or the author puts OT or similiar in the subject, then being modded as offtopic. Can you not think for yourself? The author knows its OT, we know, you know, so why waste the mod points then? Save them for modding someone UP!
The continous modding of ACs and trolls down. From what I've seen most of these are posted at 0, and most hardcore slashdotees don't browse at 0 anyway, hate ACs and will generally never see the posts. Again, why waste the mod points? Your decision to toss away your points on obvious trolling or flamebait is detrimental to the conversations here. Some good posts get ignored, and others dissapear altogether.
I agree with the above poster, that moderators should have to submit a brief reason for their decision to moderate a comment. Then the reason should accompany the post during meta-mod, so that when others meta-mod, we will understand the frame of mind the moderator was in when they made the call.
That way when someone is about to piss away a point by modding some AC who posted "linus is an ass clown Wh007!", they might stop for a moment to think about their decision, and how utterly obvious it is that they are being FUCKING LAZY. Perhaps then they will move on and search for a proper post to mod.
I never mod down, only up. Do your worst.
I'm sure that eventually internet appliances will be a good market item, but not today. ;) for a really cheap price in the same ballpark as a portable cd player or high-end calculator, then you have a chance in the market.
If you can provide a *hackable* mp3 storage device (or an encrypted porn archiver!
I think that soon though, appliances will become the norm, and the PC will fade somewhat. The home PC market is predominantly a first-world thing. That market is saturated and there is no killer app requiring 3GHZ monsters. I think that the powerful PDA's, instant messaging cellphones, PC-like gaming consoles, and Gigabit networked digital set-top boxes providing hi-def cable TV and internet access will be more in line with consumer needs and the consumer retail market.
Think about it. How many PC's have you gone through? How many (disposable?) boomboxes and walkmans have you gone through? That is the kind of semi-consistent market that I imagine doesn't suffer the same vagaries of the PC OEMs.
Dear Slashdot,
I am a complete asshole and want to waste space on your front page to see if I can completely fuck up my buddie's server. It will be kewl.
Could you please arrange to have everyone click on this link?
Thanks
AC
The scenario is this: Most universities, you buy what they tell you to; or beg, borrow steal someone elses.
Most businesses, you use what they tell you to. You don't know the software/hardware? No job for you. Unless they are willing to train (not likely).
The decision to use a particular solution, I imagine goes like this:
Suit: We need to save money in IT. Any ideas?
Unix SA: Excuse me, but I could implement this really stable--
Suit: Will our staff have to learn anything new?
Unix SA: Well, yes but-
Suit: Get me the MS rep.
MS rep: We can save you money. Let me get the bill for dinner.
Suit: We are upgrading to Windows 2000/XP/NET
1 year later....
Suit: Productivity is down. Revenues are down. We need to save money in IT. How much is that UNIX guy costing us? WHAT?!? He's fired.
MSCE: Dude! I just got a job making $40K!!!
Also add the fact that if you lose your *nix admin due to suicide, murder, anthrax, fraud, or goatporn, you are going to have a hell of a time replacing them. Not so with a cookie cutter MSCE.
All in all, Unix is in the backroom , windows is on the desktop, users need consistency, and all is good and right with IT. But you're still a drain on revenue
Aside from not believing that a "new economy" exists at all, (just a new way to leverage the old ways), I disagree with you about geeks in power. :)
I doubt very much that these "geeks" are completely altruistic. Geeks play FPS games, and fantasise about goblins and shit (LOTR if you don't believe me). They like fake tits on their fake chics at trade shows. I for one, would be a complete sonofabitch given an inch of influence and power (think cocaine and hookers 24/7
I have a sneaky suspicion that the folks at ICANN, WIPO and other internet regulatory bodies are academic/business people who perform nobly enough but are very intimately involved in their own financial affairs and those of colleagues.
Aren't most oversight commitees, boards and coalitions made up of like-minded people? Their purpose is to make more money and consolidate their influence.
Last I heard, Murray-Gell-Mann (Nobel laureate for Physics and member of the Los Alamos Group) was a chairman/advisor/stockholder of some fiber-optic broadband provider.
Just a tea party?
I just tried to agree with you but the damn "invalid keys" crap poppped up.
Anyways I just wanted to say that the legal argument about "lack-of-web-presence" is complete BS and I'm glad that the WIPO saw through it.
I just wonder what the outcome would be had Mr. Maggi not stepped forward, or the AspenGroves family waited to register (innocently) after the SW company's IPO?
http requests would still utilise bandwidth and server resources, and your attempt to be clever would fail, sorry :)
Sorry, couldn't help it, I'm deep into Snow Crash
I hope you honestly do that, I really do. In which case I apologise for my earlier harshness.
And the modem I mentioned is a Speedstreem DSL business class modem with four internal RJ-45 network ports. What would you call it if not a router?
I would call it a Speedstreem DSL business class modem
A linux box running ipchains and NAT isn't a router either. A router, last time I checked , routes traffic, it does not do DHCP or NAT or any of that. It routes.
If you are on a limited budget, you could probably increase the frequency and size of those bonuses by migrating your backend systems to a *nix variant. If the environement is extremely heterogenous, then you may not be relying on Win2K Active Directory. Which meands that a *nix solution is doable as your environement is not tied to a flimsy MS implementation. In that case ( as you said about an NT4 PDC ) why not use Samba and have it do authentication? Get rid of NT4. No more licenses, nor more service packs and hotfixes, no worries about Nimda. Just a suggestion...
Dont' ask me how though, as I've never had to do it. I'm a command line admin freak myself.
This, IMO, is great for small companies with no budget to hire you expensive unix sysadmins.
Yep, it's always a good idea for a company to pay more for overpriced, unstable, server solutions, and less for knowledgeable sysadmins. Saves money in the long run right?
I mean, why pay nothing for your server solutions, and then a little bit more per annum for someone who actually knows what they're doing?!? What a silly concept.
Imagine if cars and buildings were built with the same mentality. Buy substandard overpriced materials and get a bunch of monkeys to slap the pieces together in hopes that it fits into what looks like a a car.
... That sounds more like a user talking than an admin. Keep it invisible? What the hell are you smoking? Maybe you like your pointy-clicky push button Website and network share set-up, but I'll take a text file over that shit any day. There is nothing more aggravating that having to jump through 30 dialog/pop-ups to adjust the packet filtering on a newly opened port.
... and I'll buy it, learn how to manage it, recommend it to my friends who are in systems management, and tell the world about it.
Make superior UNIX technology invisible to me and make it work seamlessly in a Win32 environment,
Don't just learn how to manage it, understand it.
Now fuck off.
Actually, in '81 our class got to regularly play with turtle graphics on Apple ]['s, our house owned a TRS-80, I learned some BASIC, and in the late 80's our classes used both PC's and the "new" Macs. My high school was grossly underfunded however, and only had terminals running WordPerfect.
Is my perspective getting better?
You're right, My first OS was Win95. In fact, I bought my first box in 1998. Yep, and I spent 3 years in a shitty high school in Alberta, Canada (90-93) doing data entry and spreadsheets to fulfill my extra credits. Believe you me, computers were not high on the list in our curriculuum. So, does that mean I lack perspective? Perhaps. But alot of today's CS students sure as well would not be enrolled had it not been for the explosive internet boom of $YEAR.
What I was trying to illustrate is that prior to the advent of one-stop easy access internet and email embodied by W95, most of the populace (the people I am in contact with the most, hence my perspective)played games on their nintendo/PS, and wrote reports and spreadsheets on their PC. The home PC did not have the impact it has today. The masses bought computers by the millions - lowering the price, infusing R&D
and creating more opportunities for more programmers to create a variety of apps that us point/click monkeys assist others to use.
Now maybe YOU might have been in the same place, doing the same work, without Big Bill, but I would not have. I would still be staring into a frigging amber monitor plunkin on the same numeric keypad for 8 hrs/day. Now I get to repeat my "create a new dial-up connection" mantra 8 hrs/day.
Hmm, perhaps not such a good tradeoff....
Now as for tech support, some AC below cried about tech guys giving bad support. That's not bad support. That's survival. After dealing with customers long enough, the problems are all the same, and the solution invariably simplifies. I used to bend over backwards and set up every goddamn dial-up/internet/email thing to make their point and click online experience easier, less intimidating and convenient. No more. I burnt out. Even windows is too hard for people to use. It's not bad support, it's tailoring the solution to the LCD. If you cant get your mail and haven't even bothered to try any other internet activity to isolate the cause yourslef, and call me within 2 seconds of arriving from your vacation and your mail flunks, then you all you wil get from me is a request to try agin and call back. /. -- discussion that evangelises Linux and discussion that disparages MS.
And I'm sorry you got modded as flamebait, apparently there are only two topics on
I would prefer to play Sysadmin on *nix, but I would loathe to do *nix helldesk for clueless lusers.
Sheesh. Maybe Taco needs to dream about a spellchecker. It really is getting wurse
Any talk of cards, numbers or biometrics (retina, facial recog) is bullshit. True identity security can only be implemented by a global org that would uniquely identify individuals according to nationality by way of a permanent ID method that would KILL you if altered or removed. Only then will you know who your neighbour is.
So to anyone wishing for true identity security, consider what your life will be like when the Central Repository crashes and you are no longer in the database. Oops, you never existed. You are now an identity Nomad. Have a Nice Day.