"I don't know a damn thing about microsoft products and I'm proud of it"
I think I was more pointing out that some of us don't have an attitude, it's just a neccesity of getting our job done. People who tend to have an air of superiority over what they do will probably never do as good of a job as they can, and eventually it will lead to their downfall. But don't mind me since I tend to get rather bitter. Everyone will blame me when I can't fix weird (and I've seen some crazy stuff) problems with MS products, yet no one ever blames MS for making shoddy software.
Users usually aren't too happy to hear they have to reboot their machine when they have to save something they've been working on for 3 hours and can't save it... I don't ignore MS products, but in all honesty many of them have such obscure and strange problems that I don't know what to do. I'm lucky enough to have an intuition to get things moving again, but more often than not I don't know the root of the problem. One lady at work had a "My Documents" folder in the My Documents folder and excel crashed everythime she tried to open it. I told her to rename the folder and suddenly it worked. The best answer I could tell her is "I guess Excel got confused" - but that really doesn't solve anything does it...
I hope feeding Excel MySQL works well for you because that's exactly the direction I'm going. If I got paid even half of $60k per year I'd be a little more willing to know everything;)
And in contrast to my previous post, I DO believe you should know enough about any OS to get it to talk to another OS ( TCP/IP, Workgroups etc) for instance. To me knowing a little about windows networking goes hand in hand in getting windows to talk to Linux, otherwise you don't get a good view of the "big picture" and you do a crappy job on the Linux side as well. On the other hand I have no intention of getting really in depth on what MS has in store for Active Directory or what not: I'm learning it now, but there is a point where you have to cut it off and say it's a waste of time to learn any more.
To my family members I'm just honest and say I really don't know. Especially if it has to do with MS Active Sync. I recall in the National Guard I told this one guy I was going to college for Computer Science, and he says to me. "Okay, you know when you're in Word and you want to do a mail merge? I'm having this problem with... (obscure problem)." Just because I went to college for computer science doesn't mean I am the know all guru about all things computer. I can tell you what is a good video card, I can tell you how to put it in, I cannot tell you why windows won't detect it correctly. With UNIX you can usually diagnose a problem because the tools are open, MS often keeps things a bit too simple and hidden when you really need to know the guts of something.
I used to work with a guy who had this same attitude..
Some of us don't have an attitude; we're just doing our job. And you know how you become a super Linux guru knowing little about Windows? It's because you focus your efforts. It's better to do one thing well than do a shitty job knowing a little bit of everything. I don't hold it against a Linux guru if he does a very good job not knowing windows, nor do I hold it against a good (yes GOOD) MS guru if they also know their stuff and know little about Linux. Rather smart people may be able to master everything, but not so smart people like me might have to concentrate our efforts to do a better job in other areas. I spend most of my time as an admin on our Linux/NT servers, but is it really my fault because I don't know every single problem with Windows? You tell me. I really don't think so.
user (on phone): Exel is giving me an error. me: okay user: something about not enough memory. me:... user: But I just want to save the file but it won't let me. I don't even have anything else open. me:... hmm... I donno
he's using 11th dimentional math where you just make up whatever the fuck numbers you want. It's said that even U.S. school students pick up math pretty easily there.
I hated gore more than bush but that doesn't say much (didn't vote last time). If anything Gore vs Bush proved that America is fucked either way. Worried about throwing away your vote? Hah, jokes on you - either party is going to corn-hole you good, it's just a matter of what position.
Something to consider next election: PLEASE vote for who you think would actually make a good president. If you can't find a good third party candidate, vote for Wile E. Coyote. Voting for a bad candidate because the other guy is worse is NOT helping America. Something to think about.
It's strange how people will stick to pine. I don't mean novice UNIX users, I mean regular people who have no idea what UNIX really is still have an unusual fondness for pine. Chalk one up for simplicity.
I still use pine quite often (mainly for local system mail), and even better that it comes with pico. Personally I'm a 'vi' user, but if I'm away I may have to talk to the next highest on the computer food chain (ie - a slightly above average windows user) though editing some text on the phone.
Low-cost, passive chips like this have a range of only about 10 ft, however, so don't go too 1984
Well you don't have to track everyone exactly from one scanner to really track them. How many doorways do you know are larger than 20ft wide? If you had a scanner embeded in every doorway, you could already track every location you went to, what time, etc. Link that with where you actually were (ex hospital) or with what you were buying, what books you checked out etc.
I don't think this will go to 1984, but I could see all sorts of other tracking purposes. For instance if a mall were to stick one of these on the bottom of a shopping bag, they could see all the different stores you went to.
At least Blackcomb and Longhorn sound like something. Microsoft must be the absolute king of bland generic names. Windows Media, Windows Audio, MS Word, MS Paint... It's almost like writing the word "Post-it note" on all your post-it notes. To be fair I think that the KDE team is getting up there as well with the "k + bland name" thing.
I'm not exactly an anti MS zealot, but I really have to wonder if the expiration date on upgradeing to the MS "Open licencing" upgrade type plan, and then a few months later find out that the next version of MS Office won't run on win9x, NT, or Win2k below SP3* was a coincedence.
* I put this star there because there are some of use who don't like the EULA on SP3. Others such as myself cannot upgrade to SP3. I have no idea why, but every time I've attempted to upgrade to SP3 on my computer Win2k completely dies and has to be re-installed, so I won't be able to run the next version of office despite the fact that I have Win2k (like I care).
I think that the daring and exploration needs to take a step back into the realm of trying to become a little more practical. Right now the main way to get into space is a vertical take-off with gigantic booster rockets - which cannot launch if there is even the slightest bad weather, and from only 2 (if memory serves me correctly) launch sites. Until we can find a better way to get into space on average without making each launch a monumental undertaking, I think we need to hold back on the exploration part.
That said, can someone tell me why we don't have a moon base? Everyone talks about sending someone to Mars, but what about the moon? It's fairly close by, and could easily maintain contact with the earth. Has a small amount of it's own gravity which I'm sure would simplify things compared to a space station. We have a relatively alien world on our doorstep yet we refuse to actually set people down on it and explore it. Am I missing something?
Well it has yet to be seen if the game would be anything like we remember. Most of the games we remember are being turned into something like Tombraider. It's similar in that there's something we recognize, but really it's just another game like Devil May Cry. I know that Ninja Gaiden is going that way, the question is will it have the same crazy sort of storyline? That being said, Shinobi looks like it's going to be pretty cool.
See the frachise building post later in this thread for some more insight.
True enough, but there is a difference between a vulnerability, a patch and an exploit. How long was the original vulnerability there before a patch was available? Typically MS has a longer wait period then I am comfortable with.
Fear, Uncertainity, Doubt... You know I think it's worked pretty well on me. I think pretty much everything sucks all the time reguardless of the operating system. And strangely enough computer related stuff in general tends to prove my point time and time again.
Eh... why exactly does this qualify for a slashdot article (frontpage)? Granted it looks more advanced than my grandma's compost pile of three sticks and some chicken wire, but in the end a compost pike is still just a pile of crap!
Luckily the new Opeth album comes out on Monday, so I'll still be able to listen to that at least. Maybe for their next album I'll just download some high quality ogg vorbis files and send them a $20 check.
Actually I see all this as a good thing in the end. So I can't listen to CDs in my computer, and the music companies crack down more and more... does this really matter? Sometimes I think people are a bit too caught up in music/media in general. Maybe we should all go check out some of the local bands that are playing nearby - I'm sure they'd be happy to give us a $4 CDR of their stuff.
In fact I'd say if you're an artist trying to get a fanbase, NOW is your chance. As more and more people get locked out of mainstream music, a "nobody" artist can start to distribute their stuff to a much more receptive audience. I mean what else are we going to listen to on our CD players that will probably be obsolete every 1.5 years to keep up with "theft"?
how about networking these things to a white board during a meeting or teleconference where everyone can draw on the same white board?
"Dammit! Who keeps drawing horns and a goatee on the picture of the CEO? That's the third time this meeting. Everyone put their pens up in the air where I can see them..."
If your enemy is stupid enough to be within visual range when using biological, or chemical weapons then they really are idiots.
It sort of reminds me of WWI when the Gemans used to simply open canisters of gas (mustard I believe) and let the wind take it to their enemies... which didn't work so great once the wind suddenly switched directions and gassed their own troops.
Slashdot Mirror
"I don't know a damn thing about microsoft products and I'm proud of it"
;)
I think I was more pointing out that some of us don't have an attitude, it's just a neccesity of getting our job done. People who tend to have an air of superiority over what they do will probably never do as good of a job as they can, and eventually it will lead to their downfall. But don't mind me since I tend to get rather bitter. Everyone will blame me when I can't fix weird (and I've seen some crazy stuff) problems with MS products, yet no one ever blames MS for making shoddy software.
Users usually aren't too happy to hear they have to reboot their machine when they have to save something they've been working on for 3 hours and can't save it... I don't ignore MS products, but in all honesty many of them have such obscure and strange problems that I don't know what to do. I'm lucky enough to have an intuition to get things moving again, but more often than not I don't know the root of the problem. One lady at work had a "My Documents" folder in the My Documents folder and excel crashed everythime she tried to open it. I told her to rename the folder and suddenly it worked. The best answer I could tell her is "I guess Excel got confused" - but that really doesn't solve anything does it...
I hope feeding Excel MySQL works well for you because that's exactly the direction I'm going. If I got paid even half of $60k per year I'd be a little more willing to know everything
I wasn't neccesarily referring to family members.
... (obscure problem)." Just because I went to college for computer science doesn't mean I am the know all guru about all things computer. I can tell you what is a good video card, I can tell you how to put it in, I cannot tell you why windows won't detect it correctly. With UNIX you can usually diagnose a problem because the tools are open, MS often keeps things a bit too simple and hidden when you really need to know the guts of something.
And in contrast to my previous post, I DO believe you should know enough about any OS to get it to talk to another OS ( TCP/IP, Workgroups etc) for instance. To me knowing a little about windows networking goes hand in hand in getting windows to talk to Linux, otherwise you don't get a good view of the "big picture" and you do a crappy job on the Linux side as well. On the other hand I have no intention of getting really in depth on what MS has in store for Active Directory or what not: I'm learning it now, but there is a point where you have to cut it off and say it's a waste of time to learn any more.
To my family members I'm just honest and say I really don't know. Especially if it has to do with MS Active Sync. I recall in the National Guard I told this one guy I was going to college for Computer Science, and he says to me. "Okay, you know when you're in Word and you want to do a mail merge? I'm having this problem with
I used to work with a guy who had this same attitude..
... ... hmm... I donno
Some of us don't have an attitude; we're just doing our job. And you know how you become a super Linux guru knowing little about Windows? It's because you focus your efforts. It's better to do one thing well than do a shitty job knowing a little bit of everything. I don't hold it against a Linux guru if he does a very good job not knowing windows, nor do I hold it against a good (yes GOOD) MS guru if they also know their stuff and know little about Linux. Rather smart people may be able to master everything, but not so smart people like me might have to concentrate our efforts to do a better job in other areas. I spend most of my time as an admin on our Linux/NT servers, but is it really my fault because I don't know every single problem with Windows? You tell me. I really don't think so.
user (on phone): Exel is giving me an error.
me: okay
user: something about not enough memory.
me:
user: But I just want to save the file but it won't let me. I don't even have anything else open.
me:
Some of us have to pick our battles.
he's using 11th dimentional math where you just make up whatever the fuck numbers you want. It's said that even U.S. school students pick up math pretty easily there.
*cough cough* third party *cough cough*
:)
I hated gore more than bush but that doesn't say much (didn't vote last time). If anything Gore vs Bush proved that America is fucked either way. Worried about throwing away your vote? Hah, jokes on you - either party is going to corn-hole you good, it's just a matter of what position.
Something to consider next election: PLEASE vote for who you think would actually make a good president. If you can't find a good third party candidate, vote for Wile E. Coyote. Voting for a bad candidate because the other guy is worse is NOT helping America. Something to think about.
okay, I'll get of my soapbox now
It's strange how people will stick to pine. I don't mean novice UNIX users, I mean regular people who have no idea what UNIX really is still have an unusual fondness for pine. Chalk one up for simplicity.
I still use pine quite often (mainly for local system mail), and even better that it comes with pico. Personally I'm a 'vi' user, but if I'm away I may have to talk to the next highest on the computer food chain (ie - a slightly above average windows user) though editing some text on the phone.
Option A: vi[m] textfile
Option B: emacs textfile
Option C: pico textfile
Only one of these won't scar a user for life. Choose wisely =P
Low-cost, passive chips like this have a range of only about 10 ft, however, so don't go too 1984
Well you don't have to track everyone exactly from one scanner to really track them. How many doorways do you know are larger than 20ft wide? If you had a scanner embeded in every doorway, you could already track every location you went to, what time, etc. Link that with where you actually were (ex hospital) or with what you were buying, what books you checked out etc.
I don't think this will go to 1984, but I could see all sorts of other tracking purposes. For instance if a mall were to stick one of these on the bottom of a shopping bag, they could see all the different stores you went to.
Why not? I would.
Hell I've been trying to figure out how to declare myself a third world nation so MS can give me "contributions" too.
Is it? I thought Outlook Express was a virus-support API. I suspect the fact you can send email with it is a bug. :)
The joke's on you, Outlook Express IS the virus! =P
Like the Redhat release names?
At least Blackcomb and Longhorn sound like something. Microsoft must be the absolute king of bland generic names. Windows Media, Windows Audio, MS Word, MS Paint... It's almost like writing the word "Post-it note" on all your post-it notes. To be fair I think that the KDE team is getting up there as well with the "k + bland name" thing.
I'm not exactly an anti MS zealot, but I really have to wonder if the expiration date on upgradeing to the MS "Open licencing" upgrade type plan, and then a few months later find out that the next version of MS Office won't run on win9x, NT, or Win2k below SP3* was a coincedence.
* I put this star there because there are some of use who don't like the EULA on SP3. Others such as myself cannot upgrade to SP3. I have no idea why, but every time I've attempted to upgrade to SP3 on my computer Win2k completely dies and has to be re-installed, so I won't be able to run the next version of office despite the fact that I have Win2k (like I care).
I think that the daring and exploration needs to take a step back into the realm of trying to become a little more practical. Right now the main way to get into space is a vertical take-off with gigantic booster rockets - which cannot launch if there is even the slightest bad weather, and from only 2 (if memory serves me correctly) launch sites. Until we can find a better way to get into space on average without making each launch a monumental undertaking, I think we need to hold back on the exploration part.
That said, can someone tell me why we don't have a moon base? Everyone talks about sending someone to Mars, but what about the moon? It's fairly close by, and could easily maintain contact with the earth. Has a small amount of it's own gravity which I'm sure would simplify things compared to a space station. We have a relatively alien world on our doorstep yet we refuse to actually set people down on it and explore it. Am I missing something?
Well it has yet to be seen if the game would be anything like we remember. Most of the games we remember are being turned into something like Tombraider. It's similar in that there's something we recognize, but really it's just another game like Devil May Cry. I know that Ninja Gaiden is going that way, the question is will it have the same crazy sort of storyline? That being said, Shinobi looks like it's going to be pretty cool.
See the frachise building post later in this thread for some more insight.
True enough, but there is a difference between a vulnerability, a patch and an exploit. How long was the original vulnerability there before a patch was available? Typically MS has a longer wait period then I am comfortable with.
Fear, Uncertainity, Doubt... You know I think it's worked pretty well on me. I think pretty much everything sucks all the time reguardless of the operating system. And strangely enough computer related stuff in general tends to prove my point time and time again.
You got ripped off then. If you act now, I hear 127.0.0.1 is still up for grabs really cheap.
Moisture is good, but you don't want compost soup (potentially overflowing), which is exactly what would happen considering the container he's using.
Eh... why exactly does this qualify for a slashdot article (frontpage)? Granted it looks more advanced than my grandma's compost pile of three sticks and some chicken wire, but in the end a compost pike is still just a pile of crap!
Luckily the new Opeth album comes out on Monday, so I'll still be able to listen to that at least. Maybe for their next album I'll just download some high quality ogg vorbis files and send them a $20 check.
Actually I see all this as a good thing in the end. So I can't listen to CDs in my computer, and the music companies crack down more and more... does this really matter? Sometimes I think people are a bit too caught up in music/media in general. Maybe we should all go check out some of the local bands that are playing nearby - I'm sure they'd be happy to give us a $4 CDR of their stuff.
In fact I'd say if you're an artist trying to get a fanbase, NOW is your chance. As more and more people get locked out of mainstream music, a "nobody" artist can start to distribute their stuff to a much more receptive audience. I mean what else are we going to listen to on our CD players that will probably be obsolete every 1.5 years to keep up with "theft"?
how about networking these things to a white board during a meeting or teleconference where everyone can draw on the same white board?
"Dammit! Who keeps drawing horns and a goatee on the picture of the CEO? That's the third time this meeting. Everyone put their pens up in the air where I can see them..."
if you have that problem, you might be interested in just changing your user agent string.
I would except this was posted on Slashdot... I mean who can believe THAT?
If your enemy is stupid enough to be within visual range when using biological, or chemical weapons then they really are idiots.
It sort of reminds me of WWI when the Gemans used to simply open canisters of gas (mustard I believe) and let the wind take it to their enemies... which didn't work so great once the wind suddenly switched directions and gassed their own troops.
They are not backwoods rubes, but highly educated individuals.
Now congress in the United States on the other hand, is totally the other way around.
here is a rather interesting case. Even more rare in that it's one of the few non porn pictures on stileproject....