Unless the Manager of the group is going over every line of code that his/her employee writes, then the Space Shuttle IS going up guided by code that a guy wrote late last night. The most challenging software engineering jobs are the ones where the coder has to deal with the Management team who try to control their group by enforcing outdated views of conduct, like set hours or suits.
Three developers were driving down the road when their car stops dead.
They sit in the car and the Unix developer sayes "I think it's a problem with the core of the car, the engine. It can probably be fixed with a little bit of tinkering."
The Apple developer sayes "No, I think that what ever is wrong must be a proprietary problem that we shouldn't mess with. Let's just have it towed to the manufacturer and wait until they fix it."
Then the Windows developer spoke up and said "Wait...lets close all the windows, get out of the car, get back into the car and open the windows again, that'll fix it."
Since you're in the NY area you might want to check out the MIT Swapfest, it's about 3.5 hours from NY in Cambridge, MA. There is usally a good selection of junk, er...rare items from the computer and ham radio arena. Info is here
A megalomaniac tries to seize the power of life itself ("S.T. II: The Wrath of Khan"; "S.T. V: The Final Frontier"; "S.T. VII: Generations"; "S.T. IX: Insurrection"). II - Khan wanted a weapon, not the power of life. V - Spocks brother wanted to meet God. VII - Dr. Soran wanted to live in dream cloud. IX - Correct
A senior officer of the Enterprise comes back from the dead ("S.T. III: The Search for Spock"; "S.T. VII: Generations"), or a fate worse than death ("S.T. VIII: First Contact"). III - Correct VII - Kirk came back from the dream cloud, not the dead. VIII - ?!? Living with the Borg? Non-sequitor, your facts are uncoordinated.
The crew of the Enterprise goes back to an earlier century on Earth, to make sure that history happens as it should ("S.T. IV: The Voyage Home"; "S.T. VIII: First Contact"). IV - They went back to get a whale, not fix history. VIII - Correct
A spacecraft threatens to destroy Earth, and we're to blame, either because our technology is more advanced than our ethics ("S.T.: The Motion Picture") or because we've trashed other species ("S.T. IV: The Voyage Home"). I - VGER wasn't our technology, it was the technology from a mechanized planet. IV - Correct
True fans can tell you something else as well: Poverty of narrative invention has nothing to do with predicting the success or failure of any "Star Trek" film. "The Wrath of Khan" has more incident than the others put together and is by common consent the best of the lot. But "The Voyage Home" also ranks high, despite a story that can be fully retold in the listing in TV Guide. Like the original television series, which put expansive ideals into rudimentary settings, "The Voyage Home" charmed audiences by blending self-aware goofiness with outer-space liberalism.
"Khan" was the best because it was the most entertaining. "Voyage" sucked. If you're going to make an observation get the facts straight.
I heard that one proposed use of the toll transponders is to time you between entry and exit on the highway. If your average speed to get between the two points is faster then the speed limit then you'll receive an automatic ticket in the mail. Ain't technology grand!
Never, never accept a counter-offer! As a hiring manager I've extended counter-offers to key employees only to find that things change dramatically on both sides. The employee gets their ego inflated and most of the time adopts the "Indispensable Man" attitude and the employer (me) wonders every time a long lunch is taken whether the employee is at it again. It usually comes to a head and you're gone one way or the other. Also, don't use the counter-offer as a bargaining chip to the new employer, it leaves a bad taste in their mouth and it's not the way to start off a relationship. If you're unhappy at your current job or if the money is not right then just find a better position and leave.
We use Citrix in a Production environment with about 300 users but here's the kicker. We use Linux on the clients and Windows 2K on the server. This extended the life of the client workstations and gave us more control over the environment. We publish a Desktop to the clients so the user never knows the difference. We then use VNC when we have to troubleshoot, which doesn't happen often at all. Licensing is a HUGE problem with Citrix, worse than anything MS ever dreamed up. The product is nice though. We load-balance over about 20 servers and the response times are good for the user.
I tried to buy one of these things when the company was doing well. They hit my credit card and after a few weeks of waiting I called to see where my product was. Backordered. TWO MONTHS LATER still no NetWinder. Every call answered with "next week". I eventually took it to my credit card company to fight to get my money back. I will NEVER, EVER buy this product no matter how promising it is. There is no excuse for scummy sales practices.
I took the second bedroom in my condo and turned it into a server room for $900 (much to my wifes displeasure). I used Anthro furniture which is very strong and cheap, then added one 19" rack for the rackmount stuff. The Anthro furniture is on wheels so running cables is pretty easy since you can roll out the tables to get at the equipment, if you leave enough cable length. Zip ties keep everything neat and I threw in an AirPort base station for living-room-notebook surfing. I've got about a dozen servers with Kingston removable drive trays so I can play with new OS installations without introducing new boxes into the room. An Aeron chair makes the whole setup look very trendy (NOT included in the $900) but half the servers are recycled junk from the MIT Flea Market. Cooling hasn't been a problem with a window-mounted air conditioner and water-coolers for the overclocked units.
Big deal...a fancy Moped.
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 1
I applaud the technology but really...it's just another excuse not to exercise. The top speed is 12MPH and it's electric. I thought it was going to be some earth-shattering new power source or hydrogen-powered engine. It's just another fancy toy that will be popular for a while until people realize that it has the same problems as an electric-powered bicycle: you can't use it in the rain, you need to recharge it, you need to chain it up at your destination and if you're clumsy you'll run into people no matter what gyros are in the thing. I'll keep using my skateboard and mountain bike thanks.
Visor accessories - modem, Ethernet, camera, etc.
Memory sticks - better than a sweater and cheap.
Swiss Army Cyber Tool - handy.
Starbucks Gift Certificates - Geek=Hardware+Coffee
iPod - big MP3 storage and it's bootable too!
GameCube - Maybe it's time to upgrade my Sega.
Docker Mobile Pants - lots-o-pockets.
A boxed Linux distro - manuals...yeah.
DiskOnKey - cute little floppy alternative.
MST3K DVDs - push the button Frank.
Backpack notebook carrier - better than my uglybag
And don't forget a bottle of Cipro as a stocking stuffer!
My company ships iMacs all the time all over the States. When we shipped UPS Ground we'd always get paperweights on the receiving end. But when we ship UPS 2-day for some reason everything is fine. Now we use Pelican cases filled with foam. Fed-Ex is the worst. We had several insurance claims with them and after chasing my tail for weeks I finally gave up and switched to UPS. I have a friend that used to work at Fed-Ex and he told me stories of people playing touch football with smaller packages and for some reason some of the workers would give an extra kick to any boxes labeled "Fragile".
Wow, I didn't know they handed out mod points for grammer. When I said "apply the standard" I implied a redesign but it's good to have anal-types like you to point out my mistake.
The makers of access points won't leave existing customers out in the cold. Here's an example:
"Intel also offers an optional, dual-mode expansion kit enabling the new access point to support networks using products based on 802.11a and the IEEE 802.11b standard."
I've used the AirPort Base station since it's release and it's great at wireless for a mixed PC and Mac environment. Any 802.11b PCMCIA card will work with it, I use Orinoco and LinkSys cards with no problems.
It's the best wireless base station around but it did have the WEP encryption vulnerability that was very publicized. If you crack one open you'll find a straight-off-the-shelf Orinoco Silver 64-bit card. I upgraded one of our base stations with the Gold version, which provides me with 128-bit WEP, but I'm glad that Apple finally decided to do the same.
You can also attach a Lucent Range Extender antenna, which dramatically improves performance. Just pop the cover off, pull the little round tab off the PCMCIA card, attach the antenna lead, drill a hole in the cover to run the wire out and presto!
I am surprised that they did not apply the 802.11a standard that some other base station makers have recently announced for increased bandwidth over the wireless portion of the LAN. Oh well, I'll just have to wait...
I started down the road you're on almost 20 years ago, made it all the way from Helpdesk guy to MIS Manager then onto VP where I am today. Somewhere along the way I made the decision to give up the fun parts of being involved with computers in favor of more money and power over the direction of the group. If I had to do it all over again I would have given up some of the cash and stayed with what I enjoyed. In the end we are the sum of our actions. Choose carefully.
I've been toying with the idea of converting my offices over to Linux for quite a while. They're all using iMacs of various vintages and I put every distro I could find on test boxes to see if I could make it work. YellowDog is best, SuSE second and LinuxPPC is a nightmare. I don't think that my users would stand for sending all their attachments through a processing server so it's not an option. Star Office, AbiWord, Gnumeric are the best bet but there need to be some serious work on the translations from formating from the Evil Empire. OSX seems appealing due to it's BSD underpinnings. Although OSX is wonderful and would solve my problems, the cost of upgrading is prohibitive. YellowDog 2.0 with Ximian Gnome is real nice and is my current candidate. I've just gotten YellowDog 2.1 and put it on a test machine, it's nice at first glance but I need to put it through its' paces.
This is an ongoing war between two very similarly-backgrounded groups, IT and Dev. Being an IT Manager I know how frustrated some developers get when you try to limit piracy in their group by implementing a "standard" but you need to understand that it's their butts on the line if you get audited.
I've told development groups that I've worked with to let me know when they load software rather than disallow them to do it. This way I just run out and buy a legal copy for the company which makes everyone happy. Developers should be the first to applaud software purchasing since their fellow developers are the ones who benefit from it.
I don't believe that it's a good idea to implement a SOE but I also don't think that everyone should be allowed to run amok installing software. Compromise people...
There should be a moderation scheme for spam just like the one here at Slashdot. For every email you send out your subject to being modded down by the people receiving the email. If your points go negative you're email privileges would be revoked;)
Slashdot Mirror
Free your software and your mind will follow.
OK so they're using Linux to simulate car crashes, what will they use to simulate profits?
I think Enron used Windows.
Three developers were driving down the road when their car stops dead.
They sit in the car and the Unix developer sayes "I think it's a problem with the core of the car, the engine. It can probably be fixed with a little bit of tinkering."
The Apple developer sayes "No, I think that what ever is wrong must be a proprietary problem that we shouldn't mess with. Let's just have it towed to the manufacturer and wait until they fix it."
Then the Windows developer spoke up and said "Wait...lets close all the windows, get out of the car, get back into the car and open the windows again, that'll fix it."
If they find life next door, what will I do with all those spare CPU cycles after I remove my SETI@home screensaver?
Here is the current link.
Since you're in the NY area you might want to check out the MIT Swapfest, it's about 3.5 hours from NY in Cambridge, MA. There is usally a good selection of junk, er...rare items from the computer and ham radio arena. Info is here
A megalomaniac tries to seize the power of life itself ("S.T. II: The Wrath of Khan"; "S.T. V: The Final Frontier"; "S.T. VII: Generations"; "S.T. IX: Insurrection").
II - Khan wanted a weapon, not the power of life.
V - Spocks brother wanted to meet God.
VII - Dr. Soran wanted to live in dream cloud.
IX - Correct
A senior officer of the Enterprise comes back from the dead ("S.T. III: The Search for Spock"; "S.T. VII: Generations"), or a fate worse than death ("S.T. VIII: First Contact").
III - Correct
VII - Kirk came back from the dream cloud, not the dead.
VIII - ?!? Living with the Borg? Non-sequitor, your facts are uncoordinated.
The crew of the Enterprise goes back to an earlier century on Earth, to make sure that history happens as it should ("S.T. IV: The Voyage Home"; "S.T. VIII: First Contact").
IV - They went back to get a whale, not fix history.
VIII - Correct
A spacecraft threatens to destroy Earth, and we're to blame, either because our technology is more advanced than our ethics ("S.T.: The Motion Picture") or because we've trashed other species ("S.T. IV: The Voyage Home").
I - VGER wasn't our technology, it was the technology from a mechanized planet.
IV - Correct
True fans can tell you something else as well: Poverty of narrative invention has nothing to do with predicting the success or failure of any "Star Trek" film. "The Wrath of Khan" has more incident than the others put together and is by common consent the best of the lot. But "The Voyage Home" also ranks high, despite a story that can be fully retold in the listing in TV Guide. Like the original television series, which put expansive ideals into rudimentary settings, "The Voyage Home" charmed audiences by blending self-aware goofiness with outer-space liberalism.
"Khan" was the best because it was the most entertaining. "Voyage" sucked. If you're going to make an observation get the facts straight.
Darwin is the core for OS X and there is a port for it called GNU-Darwin-x86. Aqua is the GUI and I think that there are some people working on this.
And it's here.
I heard that one proposed use of the toll transponders is to time you between entry and exit on the highway. If your average speed to get between the two points is faster then the speed limit then you'll receive an automatic ticket in the mail. Ain't technology grand!
Never, never accept a counter-offer! As a hiring manager I've extended counter-offers to key employees only to find that things change dramatically on both sides. The employee gets their ego inflated and most of the time adopts the "Indispensable Man" attitude and the employer (me) wonders every time a long lunch is taken whether the employee is at it again. It usually comes to a head and you're gone one way or the other. Also, don't use the counter-offer as a bargaining chip to the new employer, it leaves a bad taste in their mouth and it's not the way to start off a relationship. If you're unhappy at your current job or if the money is not right then just find a better position and leave.
We use Citrix in a Production environment with about 300 users but here's the kicker. We use Linux on the clients and Windows 2K on the server. This extended the life of the client workstations and gave us more control over the environment. We publish a Desktop to the clients so the user never knows the difference. We then use VNC when we have to troubleshoot, which doesn't happen often at all. Licensing is a HUGE problem with Citrix, worse than anything MS ever dreamed up. The product is nice though. We load-balance over about 20 servers and the response times are good for the user.
I tried to buy one of these things when the company was doing well. They hit my credit card and after a few weeks of waiting I called to see where my product was. Backordered. TWO MONTHS LATER still no NetWinder. Every call answered with "next week". I eventually took it to my credit card company to fight to get my money back. I will NEVER, EVER buy this product no matter how promising it is. There is no excuse for scummy sales practices.
I took the second bedroom in my condo and turned it into a server room for $900 (much to my wifes displeasure). I used Anthro furniture which is very strong and cheap, then added one 19" rack for the rackmount stuff. The Anthro furniture is on wheels so running cables is pretty easy since you can roll out the tables to get at the equipment, if you leave enough cable length. Zip ties keep everything neat and I threw in an AirPort base station for living-room-notebook surfing. I've got about a dozen servers with Kingston removable drive trays so I can play with new OS installations without introducing new boxes into the room. An Aeron chair makes the whole setup look very trendy (NOT included in the $900) but half the servers are recycled junk from the MIT Flea Market. Cooling hasn't been a problem with a window-mounted air conditioner and water-coolers for the overclocked units.
I applaud the technology but really...it's just another excuse not to exercise. The top speed is 12MPH and it's electric. I thought it was going to be some earth-shattering new power source or hydrogen-powered engine. It's just another fancy toy that will be popular for a while until people realize that it has the same problems as an electric-powered bicycle: you can't use it in the rain, you need to recharge it, you need to chain it up at your destination and if you're clumsy you'll run into people no matter what gyros are in the thing. I'll keep using my skateboard and mountain bike thanks.
Here's my list:
Visor accessories - modem, Ethernet, camera, etc.
Memory sticks - better than a sweater and cheap.
Swiss Army Cyber Tool - handy.
Starbucks Gift Certificates - Geek=Hardware+Coffee
iPod - big MP3 storage and it's bootable too!
GameCube - Maybe it's time to upgrade my Sega.
Docker Mobile Pants - lots-o-pockets.
A boxed Linux distro - manuals...yeah.
DiskOnKey - cute little floppy alternative.
MST3K DVDs - push the button Frank.
Backpack notebook carrier - better than my uglybag
And don't forget a bottle of Cipro as a stocking stuffer!
My company ships iMacs all the time all over the States. When we shipped UPS Ground we'd always get paperweights on the receiving end. But when we ship UPS 2-day for some reason everything is fine. Now we use Pelican cases filled with foam. Fed-Ex is the worst. We had several insurance claims with them and after chasing my tail for weeks I finally gave up and switched to UPS. I have a friend that used to work at Fed-Ex and he told me stories of people playing touch football with smaller packages and for some reason some of the workers would give an extra kick to any boxes labeled "Fragile".
Wow, I didn't know they handed out mod points for grammer. When I said "apply the standard" I implied a redesign but it's good to have anal-types like you to point out my mistake.
The makers of access points won't leave existing customers out in the cold. Here's an example:
"Intel also offers an optional, dual-mode expansion kit enabling the new access point to support networks using products based on 802.11a and the IEEE 802.11b standard."
Here is a great site with all the info on modifying your base station for extended range.
I've used the AirPort Base station since it's release and it's great at wireless for a mixed PC and Mac environment. Any 802.11b PCMCIA card will work with it, I use Orinoco and LinkSys cards with no problems.
It's the best wireless base station around but it did have the WEP encryption vulnerability that was very publicized. If you crack one open you'll find a straight-off-the-shelf Orinoco Silver 64-bit card. I upgraded one of our base stations with the Gold version, which provides me with 128-bit WEP, but I'm glad that Apple finally decided to do the same.
You can also attach a Lucent Range Extender antenna, which dramatically improves performance. Just pop the cover off, pull the little round tab off the PCMCIA card, attach the antenna lead, drill a hole in the cover to run the wire out and presto!
I am surprised that they did not apply the 802.11a standard that some other base station makers have recently announced for increased bandwidth over the wireless portion of the LAN. Oh well, I'll just have to wait...
I started down the road you're on almost 20 years ago, made it all the way from Helpdesk guy to MIS Manager then onto VP where I am today. Somewhere along the way I made the decision to give up the fun parts of being involved with computers in favor of more money and power over the direction of the group. If I had to do it all over again I would have given up some of the cash and stayed with what I enjoyed. In the end we are the sum of our actions. Choose carefully.
I've been toying with the idea of converting my offices over to Linux for quite a while. They're all using iMacs of various vintages and I put every distro I could find on test boxes to see if I could make it work. YellowDog is best, SuSE second and LinuxPPC is a nightmare. I don't think that my users would stand for sending all their attachments through a processing server so it's not an option. Star Office, AbiWord, Gnumeric are the best bet but there need to be some serious work on the translations from formating from the Evil Empire. OSX seems appealing due to it's BSD underpinnings. Although OSX is wonderful and would solve my problems, the cost of upgrading is prohibitive. YellowDog 2.0 with Ximian Gnome is real nice and is my current candidate. I've just gotten YellowDog 2.1 and put it on a test machine, it's nice at first glance but I need to put it through its' paces.
This is an ongoing war between two very similarly-backgrounded groups, IT and Dev. Being an IT Manager I know how frustrated some developers get when you try to limit piracy in their group by implementing a "standard" but you need to understand that it's their butts on the line if you get audited.
I've told development groups that I've worked with to let me know when they load software rather than disallow them to do it. This way I just run out and buy a legal copy for the company which makes everyone happy. Developers should be the first to applaud software purchasing since their fellow developers are the ones who benefit from it.
I don't believe that it's a good idea to implement a SOE but I also don't think that everyone should be allowed to run amok installing software. Compromise people...
There should be a moderation scheme for spam just like the one here at Slashdot. For every email you send out your subject to being modded down by the people receiving the email. If your points go negative you're email privileges would be revoked ;)