Once upon a time map makers would include errors in their maps on purpose. Then when they looked at other maps that included the same errors they knew who was copying and re-selling their maps. Low tech watermark.
Not happy with how your union is run - then you should volunteer to lead it or run for union office. Not happy with the contract? Then get on the negotiating team for the next contract. Not happy about how comp-time is being used - get it changed in the next contract.
The union is only as good as the members that care enough to get involved. If all you do is sit back and complain you get the union you deserve.
I've often thought that leasing the spectrum was a better idea that the auction. Not that the gov't. couldn't yank back what was auctioned if it wanted to.
I still remember the quaint idea of TV stations operating for the public good and needing to have their licenses reviewed from time to time.
I've always wondered why the gov't. would auction off the spectrum for a one-time chunk of money as opposed to leasing it and receiving an ongoing stream of money.
Sure, it is off topic, but maybe someone has a good answer for me.
Support for MS products is not FREE either. Regardless of the platform support will be necessary - why do so many people forget this? It is not as if just anyone can set up a reliable, secure environment with no experience.
A union is not some outside force that comes in and does things for you. The leadership of your union is made up from people that members of the union elect. You don't like the way your union operates, run for a leadership position. Don't like how contracts are negotiated - get on the negotiation team. Contract negotiation is a real eye-opening experience for BOTH sides.
I know that at my workplace being in a union has improved our situation. Professional staff were treated like dirt until we unionized. We were the last group to form a union, the campus already had several unions for other areas. Forming a union was the reaction to poor managment.
I've often wondered why the gov't auctions off chunks of the EM spectrum rather than leasing it. Seems on ongoing source of revenue would be of more use than a speculative one-time shot of money. It would also be able to terminate the lease if the spectrum was not being used 'for the public good'
As a steward in my union I KNOW this is bull. All that is needed is for management to follow the procedures outlined in the contract and unionized employees CAN be fired. What I see is management too lazy to follow the procedure and keep the necessary records to support their case. They'd rather just shift the problem to another department and pile the work on other people. Having a contract negotiated between a union and a company does NOT equal lifetime employment.
I've been supporting Thin clients in our labs since back when NCD was selling WinCenter on top of Winframe on top of NT 3.51. (about 5 years) Our mandate was to provide the Windows apps in the lab, UNIX was not an option.
When it works, it is great! I'd rather have a lab full of thin clients than a lab full of PCs running Windows. The ability to contol the computing environment, configure the software for everyone, quick updates...all just by working on the server. Not to mention the ability to upgrade the entire lab just by upgrading the server. The students knew that each "machine" in the lab would act the same - no surprises after logging in. NCD also provided us with a utility that allowed the NT servers to query our NIS+ server for account information, heck, it even allowed SAMBA to automatically mount their home directories.
But remember the application software - all these PC programmers are still thinking each user has their own machine - writing files to funny places, popping in registry keys in funny places, gobbling up memory, etc. Some apps don't play nice in the MS terminal server environment.
We also ran into issues with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and some stats packages - they would run, but far too slow to be useful. When we switched to Windows 2000 from the NT+Citrix mix the clients were limited to 256 colors. Too few to keep the map makers happy.
A different department on campus had a terrible experience with Citrix when using old PCs as the "thin client" but their problems seemed to stem from a lack of training for lab monitors and users that didn't understand the difference between running an app on the local desktop machine vs. logging into the central server. As we had Xterminals to start, then Windows Based Terminals (yuk) in our labs we didn't have that problem.
I ended up pulling the thin clients from the lab and installing new PCs but that was more a political decesion by our new Dean than a technical one. Now all our GA's and some staff have thin clients in on their desks where most use them for Email, MS Office, and web browsing - and they work just fine.
For non-demanding apps you may be okay, remember to double whatever specs Citrix gives you. Only use Citrix if you *have* to. If you must offer Windows apps to thin clients you may be able to use what is built into Windows 2000 w/o the Citrix add-ons. I have a low opinion of Citrix since getting caught in the middle of the licensing battles between them, Microsoft, and NCD. Held up my upgrades for over a year, removed loads of functionality from the product, cost lots more money. I was happy to leave Citrix behind.
I miss having the old Xterminals in the labs, heck, I even miss the NCD Thinstars in the labs, but we'll be setting up the PCs to dual boot...
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This may or may not be a mistake.
Once upon a time map makers would include errors in their maps on purpose. Then when they looked at other maps that included the same errors they knew who was copying and re-selling their maps. Low tech watermark.
Not happy with how your union is run - then you should volunteer to lead it or run for union office. Not happy with the contract? Then get on the negotiating team for the next contract. Not happy about how comp-time is being used - get it changed in the next contract.
The union is only as good as the members that care enough to get involved. If all you do is sit back and complain you get the union you deserve.
I've often thought that leasing the spectrum was a better idea that the auction. Not that the gov't. couldn't yank back what was auctioned if it wanted to.
I still remember the quaint idea of TV stations operating for the public good and needing to have their licenses reviewed from time to time.
Silly me.
I've always wondered why the gov't. would auction off the spectrum for a one-time chunk of money as opposed to leasing it and receiving an ongoing stream of money.
Sure, it is off topic, but maybe someone has a good answer for me.
Support for MS products is not FREE either. Regardless of the platform support will be necessary - why do so many people forget this? It is not as if just anyone can set up a reliable, secure environment with no experience.
A union is not some outside force that comes in and does things for you. The leadership of your union is made up from people that members of the union elect. You don't like the way your union operates, run for a leadership position. Don't like how contracts are negotiated - get on the negotiation team. Contract negotiation is a real eye-opening experience for BOTH sides.
I know that at my workplace being in a union has improved our situation. Professional staff were treated like dirt until we unionized. We were the last group to form a union, the campus already had several unions for other areas. Forming a union was the reaction to poor managment.
I've often wondered why the gov't auctions off chunks of the EM spectrum rather than leasing it. Seems on ongoing source of revenue would be of more use than a speculative one-time shot of money. It would also be able to terminate the lease if the spectrum was not being used 'for the public good'
Is it that I'm just not cynical enough?
As a steward in my union I KNOW this is bull. All that is needed is for management to follow the procedures outlined in the contract and unionized employees CAN be fired. What I see is management too lazy to follow the procedure and keep the necessary records to support their case. They'd rather just shift the problem to another department and pile the work on other people. Having a contract negotiated between a union and a company does NOT equal lifetime employment.
I've been supporting Thin clients in our labs since back when NCD was selling WinCenter on top of Winframe on top of NT 3.51. (about 5 years) Our mandate was to provide the Windows apps in the lab, UNIX was not an option.
When it works, it is great! I'd rather have a lab full of thin clients than a lab full of PCs running Windows. The ability to contol the computing environment, configure the software for everyone, quick updates...all just by working on the server. Not to mention the ability to upgrade the entire lab just by upgrading the server. The students knew that each "machine" in the lab would act the same - no surprises after logging in. NCD also provided us with a utility that allowed the NT servers to query our NIS+ server for account information, heck, it even allowed SAMBA to automatically mount their home directories.
But remember the application software - all these PC programmers are still thinking each user has their own machine - writing files to funny places, popping in registry keys in funny places, gobbling up memory, etc. Some apps don't play nice in the MS terminal server environment.
We also ran into issues with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and some stats packages - they would run, but far too slow to be useful. When we switched to Windows 2000 from the NT+Citrix mix the clients were limited to 256 colors. Too few to keep the map makers happy.
A different department on campus had a terrible experience with Citrix when using old PCs as the "thin client" but their problems seemed to stem from a lack of training for lab monitors and users that didn't understand the difference between running an app on the local desktop machine vs. logging into the central server. As we had Xterminals to start, then Windows Based Terminals (yuk) in our labs we didn't have that problem.
I ended up pulling the thin clients from the lab and installing new PCs but that was more a political decesion by our new Dean than a technical one. Now all our GA's and some staff have thin clients in on their desks where most use them for Email, MS Office, and web browsing - and they work just fine.
For non-demanding apps you may be okay, remember to double whatever specs Citrix gives you. Only use Citrix if you *have* to. If you must offer Windows apps to thin clients you may be able to use what is built into Windows 2000 w/o the Citrix add-ons. I have a low opinion of Citrix since getting caught in the middle of the licensing battles between them, Microsoft, and NCD. Held up my upgrades for over a year, removed loads of functionality from the product, cost lots more money. I was happy to leave Citrix behind.
I miss having the old Xterminals in the labs, heck, I even miss the NCD Thinstars in the labs, but we'll be setting up the PCs to dual boot...