From what I know Mac OS X 10.5 has Spaces [wikipedia.org]. I don't know how limiting they are or how they work, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
Spaces kicks ass. It's everything that workspaces were in CDE. And a little more. And I loved me some CDE. The best part about MacOS for me, though, is Expose.You know how you can 'find' your desktop in windows with that 'windows-d' thing? try that, but without minimizing or hiding all your windows. They just zip right up out of the way, and pop right back when you're done.
I'm less than 37, and I remember usenet being somewhat useful in my youth, but as I'm not a professional or even much of a hobbyist programmer (I like learning new languages, but haven't come up with a good project for myself), the fact there's still comp.lang.whatever doesn't really mean much to me.
I don't think I've found a use for usenet in about... 10 years. I belong to specific discussion boards for specific topics, and have never looked back. With resources like google and wikipedia, not to mention books made on whatever topic I'm interested in, the wild wild west days of usenet as the place to go are happily behind me. (usenet, archie, gopher... none are more than a fond memory for me these days)
Oh, those are still out there. I saw one the other day that wanted 3 years in Windows 2008, Exchange 2010, and Windows 7.
I 'settled' for my last job, a job with a start-up company because I thought I could grow with the company. BZZZT. Instead of promoting someone internally, they hired 3-4 people for positions I tried for (who all left or were asked to leave while I was there) and then hired for a couple more positions that were never advertised internally.
I'm currently contracting to a "managed services" company (ie, outsourced IT) while they ship this job to India. Literally, we have 3 americans and 6 indians working "together". Until we're not. Even outsourcing is outsourcing!
Except that the ipad seems like the right size for the coffee table, the kitchen counter, or the bedside table. Places where everyone would want one, to quickly google whatshisname in that movie you're watching without going over to the desktop computer, or to check your email without getting out of bed. Places where a spouse or parent of someone who has an iphone or ipod touch might want one without the small size.
Not everyone wants to spend the money on a full laptop, and the little netbooks are... close but no cigar (and talk about stripped OS... I've played with a few, and ick.) and really, a keyboard is kind of out of place on these types of devices.
I keep thinking my mom or grandfather would like one of these devices, as the interface would be more understandable to 'everyday people' than a full computer.
Yes they do. They plan to all get in my way. It's a vast government conspiracy to have everyone in Denver go to work at 8am and leave at 5pm.
Well, they're in my way on my way from work, as I'm one of those opposite-hours people.
That's what I thought it was for.
Srsly, they're your firewall logs. You should have some clue where inbound traffic is coming from and why.
If you've got a webserver serving some sort of information that changes, this could be rss readers hitting your site. Or it could be pings of death being dropped by your firewall. It could be web surfers getting to work and hitting you up for information, or browsers grabbing some active information on your site. It could be googlebots. It could be slashdot hits for all I know. These are just theories, because this isn't my firewall or my traffic.
I worked for an ISP in '95, and answered calls that would make your teeth set on edge. From the guy who couldn't download his email at work (because it was full of porn, something that made me change my policy of testing a customer's email via opening their account in netscape) to the guy who wanted me to read him the contents of artbell.com because he didn't have a computer, they were all... memorable. This is the story of the straw that broke the camel's back.
It was 7:30 PM, and already dark out. I had a half-hour before I left work for the night, and was hoping for it to be quiet for the last few minutes of my shift. This guy called in, let's call him Joe.
Me: Internet of [yourcity], this is [myname], how can I help you? Joe: I can't get my webpage to upload. Your server's broken. Me: Ok, what program are you using to upload your web page? Joe: [ftp program] Me: Ok, read me the site you're trying to upload to. Joe: ftp.[yourcity].net Me: And your username? Joe: joeblow Me: And you're sure you have the right password? Joe: I know my own password!
We go on like this, around and around. Everything looks good on his end, everything works on our end. I reset his password to test it out. I have him email me the web page he built. I upload it using his username and password. I try to have him put the ip into his ftp client instead of the domain name. It works. But he won't leave it that way "because we might change it any day now". So he puts the domain name back in, it stops working.
He gets insanely upset, I offer to send a tech out (I'd send my coworker instead, in the daylight hours), he refuses. He cusses me out. I tell him I'm not going to stand for his abuse, and he needs to calm down. He says I'm only fit for a job where I wear a hair net and ask "do you want fries with that?".
I hang up on him.
He calls back, I let it ring.
He calls back again, 15 minutes later. "I figured it out, I had [yourcity] spelled wrong. Would you check that you can get to my web page?" Ok. I hang up, and click over to "his" site.
"I am a Christian man looking for other like minded..."
[string of expletives] [forward the phones]
This is, of course, the incident which almost got me fired, but I didn't know until 3 months later when I *demanded* a review. The owner said I needed to work on my "customer service" skills. I told him I'm a human being who deserves at least a modicum of respect, and I don't tolerate being belittled. Especially after I gave fair warning that I wasn't going to take this guy's crap.
I gave my notice the day after the review, after sleeping on it.
Who says that a degree in IT is a prerequesite for working in the field? Just because you see men in the college courses doesn't mean that these are the people who will be staffing your helpdesk, your operations center, etc.
There are other skills required to work in the "IT field" that aren't taught in any school, which many of those men in "top-level classes" never acquire.
I'd love to see these companies where females are 35-50% of the IT workforce -- maybe in a call center... I've generally been the only female on my team, and one of a handful in the larger group. In the last 5 years, I've been the only female on the team everywhere I've worked. This is California (Northern & Southern CA) and Colorado, and for large companies as well as small.
"Appearing" to care about diversity should never come before hiring the best person for the job. True diversity in the workplace comes from hiring the best people you can find, whether they be black, white, asian, hispanic, male or female, gay or straight.
Actually, there are positions open at the company I'm with. Not glamorous, but eh. And I do the ~1h drive from the springs to the tech center.
There are tech jobs here, but most want a clearance. Many want someone who's proficient in everything, and 9 times out of 10, it's some HR person or non-technical recruiter calling, who doesn't know that technology A and technology B that are both "required" are the same thing.
The job market sucks (mostly), though. Most likely due to the tech bust, but there were so many people working in IT because they knew how to turn a computer on during the boom that it was insane. (I was in Silicon Valley during the boom -- and bust.)
Tell that to the attention whore who passed me twice the other night, accelerating quickly to, oh, 60-70 mph (in a 45), popping wheelies, then getting over into the right lane (I gladly gave thim the left lane) and slowing down going up the hill (to 35 in this same 45 mph zone).
I was glad to see that he had some sense, and was at least wearing a helmet (not required in this state) and leather jacket, but I'm (a) married and (b) not interested in idiots.
I had 2 co-workers who rode motorcycles. One was your typical bike-guy who knew his motorcycle (and motorcycles in general) upside-down, inside-out, and backwards. He wore the leather (and manmade fibers) jacket & pants, protective boots, and a helmet. The other was the 'environmentalist' who rode because he could weave in and out of the mostly not-moving cars (illegal, but hey). He wore overalls, plus a non-animal-carcass jacket, boots, and helmet. Neither of them drove loud bikes. Neither of them wore neon-everything. Neither of them were asshole motorcyclists. They were both in their late 30's/early 40's, so obviously, their wits allowed them to continue breathing.
As a car-driver, I, too, am tired of the cell-phone-talking not-paying-attention assholes on the road. I was behind one who stayed stopped at a green because he was talking on his phone, and dealing with his kids.
Being an annoyance can also get you killed if you're being an unsafe annoyance, like the asshat wheelie-popping mofo who kept pulling in front of me.
Agreed. I've been wearing glasses since I was 6, and contacts since I was 10. That's not 32 years of corrective lenses (just 22), but it's not a big deal to put on glasses, or put in contacts every day.
My last opthamologist asked why I wasn't asking about corrective surgery; oddly enough, I just don't think the risk is worth the reward for me. My eyes, while nowhere near perfect (nearsighted as fuck-all, astygmatism in both eyes), are still not worth risking in a procedure like this. I'll keep my blurry vision over double vision, halos, photophobia, etc. anyday.
Of course, different people have different definitions of acceptable risk. What works for me may not be the best for you, etc.
Why this is an "ask slashdot" is beyond me, though. Shouldn't you be asking qualified medical professionals? [That's got an 's' on the end for a reason.] Talking over the real risks with your current doctor, discussing it with another (unrelated, un-referred) eye doctor? Perhaps going into one of those laser clinics for a consultation?
Stock tires just plain suck, though. And not in the 'suck you to the road' way.
I had a Saturn, and loved speeding up the I-5 corridor when we were moving our stuff down from San Jose to San Diego (we took several little trips of stuff instead of one big trip). My stock tires sucked; I had 4 flats in the time I owned the damn thing, and finally my (then) boyfriend bought me a new set of tires.
The stock tires on his Ford Explorer Sport Trac (bought because his motorcycle stopped um, starting) were slippery as hell, too.
Oh yeah, MPG...
Saturn (5-spd): consistently 30+ MPG, Ford (automatic): consistently 16-18 MPG. We traded both of those in on a Honda Element (manual), and I've gotten 26-28MPG lately[1] (well above the sticker, but the sticker's way low, because they have the same numbers for auto vs. manual). In Colorado. In the hills. In the thin air, far, far, far above sea level.
[1] Sometimes I check mileage vs. gasoline, sometimes not. I'm not especially obsessive over it.
Everybody's work will, at some time or another, require them to change system settings. Everybody's work will, at some time, require them to install software.
Wow. So, you're saying the receptionist will be required to install software as part of her job? The executive assistant will need to make registry changes? I call bullshit. Most users have the tools on their machine to do their jobs.
Corporate policy is set to make support more or less standardized, so that the support people can swap a broken desktop for one that works without too much of a delay, so that the people who actually do the work can stop twiddling with their desktop and just do the work.
If I trash it, reprimand me, but it is LESS work for either of us over the life of the tool to let me use it the way I know and break it then it is to teach me a new way to use it and require your supervision to use it.
If you trash it, you're not only wasting your own time, but the time of the people who keep the computers running. Neither of your times are "cheap".
It's analagous to saying "I'll use this shovel the way *I* know how to use it, and if it breaks, so what? Give me another shovel."... and you'll break that one, too. Except you're talking about a ~$1500 networked shovel that requires a support staff, constant patching and updates.
Face it guys: you are glorified digital janitors, and the only reason you have the power that you do is that CEOs have not yet realized how easy you are to fire and replace.
I've always said as much. Anyone who was willing to learn, and to put up with the abuse of, say, users like yourself, can do this job. It's a matter of data retention, and a willingness to keep up with technology. IT is a support organization, supporting the people who make the money. Personally, I think that we should be lumped in with the Facilities people, because we essentially do the same job. No one gets promoted for keeping a building running, but they're damned if something breaks, no matter whose fault it is.
Of course, the janitor can work with the same broom for 20 years. Cleaning innovations come around rather infrequently (home cleaning aside). The facilities people don't have new wrenches that make their old ones obsolete after 6 months.
IT changes constantly. There's a new version of SoftwareCompanyWidgets, a new OS version, a new virus, a new patch, a new inconsistancy. A new client-server piece of crap that doesn't conform to any sort of standards, and screws other things up. A new set of things that won't work together.
And the janitors' and facilities' (or physical plant's) realm is fixed, for the most part. You don't expand a physical facility at the whim of the business units. You don't have buildings being added, removed, and replaced at the pace you do within an IT environment.
As for being fired and replaced, many IT people have been fired, downsized, outsourced, etc. CEO's know EXACTLY how easy it is. But there's always a cost to hiring someone new and getting them familiar with your environment and your rules. The cost of replacing employees is not usually one that a company wishes to bear.
I've seen offices that have high IT turnover, and you'd better believe they have clean, easy to use computers and no "policy" about the way i have to use the tools that do my job.
Those offices also probably don't have any sort of data security, network security, etc. Cookie cutter machines are easy to build with ghost, jumpstart, ignite, etc. Without policies, they become nightmares to fix, because no one knows who has access to what, or what you've installed on your machine.
Most rules have REAL reasons behind them; for example, at one of the places I worked, machines have to be locked down and changed via CR due to federal regulations. Yes, users complained, but they quieted down when
Why don't you try to get the girlfriends together for a girls' night out or something similar? Fund it the first time, and then less and less funding until they're doing things on their own.
You could try getting 'the girls' into some of the GameCube multiplayer games (Mario Party, Super Smash Brothers, Mystic Heroes, etc.), and they could have "game night" while "the boys" are playing.
Those are games that we play when we have friends over, and even our non-hardcore-gaming friends can get into beating each other up.:)
Luckily, I don't have this problem. My husband and I like the same types of games, especially the multi-player ones. We're both NOT PC gamers, both NOT FPS gamers, etc. Console gamers, both, usually GC, usually from the couch with the wavebird.
The other alternative is to curb your gaming some to spend time with the girly. Compromise some. Spend one night you'd normally game doing something nice with her. "Honey, I thought that we could go to a movie or dinner (or stay in with a video) instead of me gaming tonight." would probably do wonders. I'm not saying quit, just cut back a bit if you want to keep the girl.
No girl likes to be ignored, and it's easy (as a geek) to get tunnel vision. If you focus on the games too long, though, you'll have the game, and lose the girl without too much effort.
It gave my youngest brother tics as well (he's autistic, and that's one of the meds he was on at the time).. his head would 'yank' to one side, he'd blink more often, etc.
Of course, he was 6 at the time, and thought it was funny.;)
The upgrade's only like $100; or at least was the last time I saw it. That's the same as 4 games (depending on if you buy bleeding edge titles).
The thing that no one (especially MS) wants to say is that PC's have a much longer half-life than manufacturers would want. Perhaps if it were a black box, one OS would work. [Like gaming consoles, but even then weirdos try to put other OS's on them.]
Of course, you'd have thought that MS would lower the pricepoint with all the "competition" from Linux... but that's another story altogether.
I'm running XP at home, and I patch weekly. The patch for the sasser worm came out 3 weeks before the attack. Not only am I behind a firewall at home, but my systems are patched. I "upgraded" to 95 in '96, 98 in '99, and 2k in 2002. To XP... 2 months ago.
If you don't want to pay for windows, don't. Use linux/*BSD/something else that doesn't cost $200/license. You can download ISO's for the same amount you can download pirated windows discs. Whatever you decide to use, you should keep up with your patches.
Pirating software isn't just about cheap, it's about feeling entitled to software without paying for it.
My co-worker had a similar (but slightly different) issue. Corporate IT sent emails and program updates telling us "Important Security Patches!!!!! OMG You HAVE TO install!!!" (well, ok, more professional than that, but...)
So we both start the install at the same time. Wait, wait, twiddle thumbs, etc. Reboot time comes. My w2k box comes up fine. His... well... refuses to boot at all. Luckily, we have linux boxes as well. (We support unix & linux servers, but are required to have windows boxes for the "Corporate Software": Outlook, IE, Office, etc.) He spent a day copying off his data (using a knoppix CD) and another day rebuilding to the corporate standards.
We need internet licenses. Nobody without a geek code should be granted an IP address. It's that simple.
Then implement training at your site. At least suggest it. Computers are tools. We don't require people to get socket-wrench certified, or expect (most of) them to take telephone answering lessons. Most people think of computers in the same way.
Why should we expect users (consumers, customers, grandmas) to know everything about the complex tool that they've been given? Most people use their computer for email and surfing the web. They don't care about or want to know how it works. As long as it does.
As a "sysadmin", it is your job to make sure that users are able to work. Within those bounds, you may encounter issues with users doing stupid things. Most of the time, they don't realize what they're doing is what's bogging down their computer. Usually, if you say "I found that the problem was that you have [kazaa | bearshare | napster] installed, and it's what's bogging your PC down, and oh by the way, these things aren't allowed," people listen. Sometimes they even learn something.
Someone within your organization should have the authority to say "X is allowed, Y is not." and to have the authority to also say "You signed this piece of paper saying you wouldn't Y, and we have concrete evidence that you Y all the time. Your manager and HR have been notified."
IT is a service organization. Being arrogant about what you know versus what your users know doesn't work very well, and ends up getting us all branded as Nick Burns, Computer Guy.
As for the permissions bit, MS is both really good and really horrifyingly awful about user permissions. Yes, you can set it up so that the user has no power to install software, modify the registry, etc., but you'll end up with (a) a user who resents you or (b) several one-offs where the user has to have admin privileges to do their job or even (c) a user who finds their way around your rules and limitations.
Slashdot Mirror
From what I know Mac OS X 10.5 has Spaces [wikipedia.org]. I don't know how limiting they are or how they work, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
Spaces kicks ass. It's everything that workspaces were in CDE. And a little more. And I loved me some CDE. The best part about MacOS for me, though, is Expose.You know how you can 'find' your desktop in windows with that 'windows-d' thing? try that, but without minimizing or hiding all your windows. They just zip right up out of the way, and pop right back when you're done.
I'm less than 37, and I remember usenet being somewhat useful in my youth, but as I'm not a professional or even much of a hobbyist programmer (I like learning new languages, but haven't come up with a good project for myself), the fact there's still comp.lang.whatever doesn't really mean much to me. I don't think I've found a use for usenet in about ... 10 years. I belong to specific discussion boards for specific topics, and have never looked back. With resources like google and wikipedia, not to mention books made on whatever topic I'm interested in, the wild wild west days of usenet as the place to go are happily behind me. (usenet, archie, gopher... none are more than a fond memory for me these days)
Oh, those are still out there. I saw one the other day that wanted 3 years in Windows 2008, Exchange 2010, and Windows 7. I 'settled' for my last job, a job with a start-up company because I thought I could grow with the company. BZZZT. Instead of promoting someone internally, they hired 3-4 people for positions I tried for (who all left or were asked to leave while I was there) and then hired for a couple more positions that were never advertised internally. I'm currently contracting to a "managed services" company (ie, outsourced IT) while they ship this job to India. Literally, we have 3 americans and 6 indians working "together". Until we're not. Even outsourcing is outsourcing!
Twice, it seems.
Except that the ipad seems like the right size for the coffee table, the kitchen counter, or the bedside table. Places where everyone would want one, to quickly google whatshisname in that movie you're watching without going over to the desktop computer, or to check your email without getting out of bed. Places where a spouse or parent of someone who has an iphone or ipod touch might want one without the small size. Not everyone wants to spend the money on a full laptop, and the little netbooks are... close but no cigar (and talk about stripped OS... I've played with a few, and ick.) and really, a keyboard is kind of out of place on these types of devices. I keep thinking my mom or grandfather would like one of these devices, as the interface would be more understandable to 'everyday people' than a full computer.
Yes they do. They plan to all get in my way. It's a vast government conspiracy to have everyone in Denver go to work at 8am and leave at 5pm. Well, they're in my way on my way from work, as I'm one of those opposite-hours people.
That's what I thought it was for. Srsly, they're your firewall logs. You should have some clue where inbound traffic is coming from and why. If you've got a webserver serving some sort of information that changes, this could be rss readers hitting your site. Or it could be pings of death being dropped by your firewall. It could be web surfers getting to work and hitting you up for information, or browsers grabbing some active information on your site. It could be googlebots. It could be slashdot hits for all I know. These are just theories, because this isn't my firewall or my traffic.
the heat-up causes a shift in how much the clock drifts, and you can query time from different servers to pinpoint which one it is.
See what reading the article gets you? A tiny nugget of useless information.
I worked for an ISP in '95, and answered calls that would make your teeth set on edge. From the guy who couldn't download his email at work (because it was full of porn, something that made me change my policy of testing a customer's email via opening their account in netscape) to the guy who wanted me to read him the contents of artbell.com because he didn't have a computer, they were all... memorable. This is the story of the straw that broke the camel's back.
It was 7:30 PM, and already dark out. I had a half-hour before I left work for the night, and was hoping for it to be quiet for the last few minutes of my shift. This guy called in, let's call him Joe.
Me: Internet of [yourcity], this is [myname], how can I help you?
Joe: I can't get my webpage to upload. Your server's broken.
Me: Ok, what program are you using to upload your web page?
Joe: [ftp program]
Me: Ok, read me the site you're trying to upload to.
Joe: ftp.[yourcity].net
Me: And your username?
Joe: joeblow
Me: And you're sure you have the right password?
Joe: I know my own password!
We go on like this, around and around. Everything looks good on his end, everything works on our end. I reset his password to test it out. I have him email me the web page he built. I upload it using his username and password. I try to have him put the ip into his ftp client instead of the domain name. It works. But he won't leave it that way "because we might change it any day now". So he puts the domain name back in, it stops working.
He gets insanely upset, I offer to send a tech out (I'd send my coworker instead, in the daylight hours), he refuses. He cusses me out. I tell him I'm not going to stand for his abuse, and he needs to calm down. He says I'm only fit for a job where I wear a hair net and ask "do you want fries with that?".
I hang up on him.
He calls back, I let it ring.
He calls back again, 15 minutes later. "I figured it out, I had [yourcity] spelled wrong. Would you check that you can get to my web page?" Ok. I hang up, and click over to "his" site.
"I am a Christian man looking for other like minded..."
[string of expletives]
[forward the phones]
This is, of course, the incident which almost got me fired, but I didn't know until 3 months later when I *demanded* a review. The owner said I needed to work on my "customer service" skills. I told him I'm a human being who deserves at least a modicum of respect, and I don't tolerate being belittled. Especially after I gave fair warning that I wasn't going to take this guy's crap.
I gave my notice the day after the review, after sleeping on it.
Who says that a degree in IT is a prerequesite for working in the field? Just because you see men in the college courses doesn't mean that these are the people who will be staffing your helpdesk, your operations center, etc.
There are other skills required to work in the "IT field" that aren't taught in any school, which many of those men in "top-level classes" never acquire.
I'd love to see these companies where females are 35-50% of the IT workforce -- maybe in a call center... I've generally been the only female on my team, and one of a handful in the larger group. In the last 5 years, I've been the only female on the team everywhere I've worked. This is California (Northern & Southern CA) and Colorado, and for large companies as well as small.
"Appearing" to care about diversity should never come before hiring the best person for the job. True diversity in the workplace comes from hiring the best people you can find, whether they be black, white, asian, hispanic, male or female, gay or straight.
Actually, there are positions open at the company I'm with. Not glamorous, but eh. And I do the ~1h drive from the springs to the tech center.
There are tech jobs here, but most want a clearance. Many want someone who's proficient in everything, and 9 times out of 10, it's some HR person or non-technical recruiter calling, who doesn't know that technology A and technology B that are both "required" are the same thing.
The job market sucks (mostly), though. Most likely due to the tech bust, but there were so many people working in IT because they knew how to turn a computer on during the boom that it was insane. (I was in Silicon Valley during the boom -- and bust.)
Tell that to the attention whore who passed me twice the other night, accelerating quickly to, oh, 60-70 mph (in a 45), popping wheelies, then getting over into the right lane (I gladly gave thim the left lane) and slowing down going up the hill (to 35 in this same 45 mph zone).
I was glad to see that he had some sense, and was at least wearing a helmet (not required in this state) and leather jacket, but I'm (a) married and (b) not interested in idiots.
I had 2 co-workers who rode motorcycles. One was your typical bike-guy who knew his motorcycle (and motorcycles in general) upside-down, inside-out, and backwards. He wore the leather (and manmade fibers) jacket & pants, protective boots, and a helmet. The other was the 'environmentalist' who rode because he could weave in and out of the mostly not-moving cars (illegal, but hey). He wore overalls, plus a non-animal-carcass jacket, boots, and helmet. Neither of them drove loud bikes. Neither of them wore neon-everything. Neither of them were asshole motorcyclists. They were both in their late 30's/early 40's, so obviously, their wits allowed them to continue breathing.
As a car-driver, I, too, am tired of the cell-phone-talking not-paying-attention assholes on the road. I was behind one who stayed stopped at a green because he was talking on his phone, and dealing with his kids.
Being an annoyance can also get you killed if you're being an unsafe annoyance, like the asshat wheelie-popping mofo who kept pulling in front of me.
Sigh. Brings back memories. There was also a separate series (about 2 years' worth, IIRC) of Huntress comics -- not Helena Kyle, tho.
I think there was a crossover bit, but I can't remember, as everything crosses over everything in the DC universe at some point.
Agreed. I've been wearing glasses since I was 6, and contacts since I was 10. That's not 32 years of corrective lenses (just 22), but it's not a big deal to put on glasses, or put in contacts every day.
My last opthamologist asked why I wasn't asking about corrective surgery; oddly enough, I just don't think the risk is worth the reward for me. My eyes, while nowhere near perfect (nearsighted as fuck-all, astygmatism in both eyes), are still not worth risking in a procedure like this. I'll keep my blurry vision over double vision, halos, photophobia, etc. anyday.
Of course, different people have different definitions of acceptable risk. What works for me may not be the best for you, etc.
Why this is an "ask slashdot" is beyond me, though. Shouldn't you be asking qualified medical professionals? [That's got an 's' on the end for a reason.] Talking over the real risks with your current doctor, discussing it with another (unrelated, un-referred) eye doctor? Perhaps going into one of those laser clinics for a consultation?
"It looks like you're writing a letter"
"Piss off!"
Yep. I tend to check about once or twice a month. Not on a totally regular basis, though. I have other things to be anal-retentive about. :)
Stock tires just plain suck, though. And not in the 'suck you to the road' way.
I had a Saturn, and loved speeding up the I-5 corridor when we were moving our stuff down from San Jose to San Diego (we took several little trips of stuff instead of one big trip). My stock tires sucked; I had 4 flats in the time I owned the damn thing, and finally my (then) boyfriend bought me a new set of tires.
The stock tires on his Ford Explorer Sport Trac (bought because his motorcycle stopped um, starting) were slippery as hell, too.
Oh yeah, MPG...
Saturn (5-spd): consistently 30+ MPG, Ford (automatic): consistently 16-18 MPG. We traded both of those in on a Honda Element (manual), and I've gotten 26-28MPG lately[1] (well above the sticker, but the sticker's way low, because they have the same numbers for auto vs. manual). In Colorado. In the hills. In the thin air, far, far, far above sea level.
[1] Sometimes I check mileage vs. gasoline, sometimes not. I'm not especially obsessive over it.
Wow. So, you're saying the receptionist will be required to install software as part of her job? The executive assistant will need to make registry changes? I call bullshit. Most users have the tools on their machine to do their jobs.
Corporate policy is set to make support more or less standardized, so that the support people can swap a broken desktop for one that works without too much of a delay, so that the people who actually do the work can stop twiddling with their desktop and just do the work.
If you trash it, you're not only wasting your own time, but the time of the people who keep the computers running. Neither of your times are "cheap".
It's analagous to saying "I'll use this shovel the way *I* know how to use it, and if it breaks, so what? Give me another shovel." ... and you'll break that one, too. Except you're talking about a ~$1500 networked shovel that requires a support staff, constant patching and updates.
I've always said as much. Anyone who was willing to learn, and to put up with the abuse of, say, users like yourself, can do this job. It's a matter of data retention, and a willingness to keep up with technology. IT is a support organization, supporting the people who make the money. Personally, I think that we should be lumped in with the Facilities people, because we essentially do the same job. No one gets promoted for keeping a building running, but they're damned if something breaks, no matter whose fault it is.
Of course, the janitor can work with the same broom for 20 years. Cleaning innovations come around rather infrequently (home cleaning aside). The facilities people don't have new wrenches that make their old ones obsolete after 6 months.
IT changes constantly. There's a new version of SoftwareCompanyWidgets, a new OS version, a new virus, a new patch, a new inconsistancy. A new client-server piece of crap that doesn't conform to any sort of standards, and screws other things up. A new set of things that won't work together.
And the janitors' and facilities' (or physical plant's) realm is fixed, for the most part. You don't expand a physical facility at the whim of the business units. You don't have buildings being added, removed, and replaced at the pace you do within an IT environment.
As for being fired and replaced, many IT people have been fired, downsized, outsourced, etc. CEO's know EXACTLY how easy it is. But there's always a cost to hiring someone new and getting them familiar with your environment and your rules. The cost of replacing employees is not usually one that a company wishes to bear.
Those offices also probably don't have any sort of data security, network security, etc. Cookie cutter machines are easy to build with ghost, jumpstart, ignite, etc. Without policies, they become nightmares to fix, because no one knows who has access to what, or what you've installed on your machine.
Most rules have REAL reasons behind them; for example, at one of the places I worked, machines have to be locked down and changed via CR due to federal regulations. Yes, users complained, but they quieted down when
"Too much words" this early for me.
Why don't you try to get the girlfriends together for a girls' night out or something similar? Fund it the first time, and then less and less funding until they're doing things on their own.
You could try getting 'the girls' into some of the GameCube multiplayer games (Mario Party, Super Smash Brothers, Mystic Heroes, etc.), and they could have "game night" while "the boys" are playing.
Those are games that we play when we have friends over, and even our non-hardcore-gaming friends can get into beating each other up.
Luckily, I don't have this problem. My husband and I like the same types of games, especially the multi-player ones. We're both NOT PC gamers, both NOT FPS gamers, etc. Console gamers, both, usually GC, usually from the couch with the wavebird.
The other alternative is to curb your gaming some to spend time with the girly. Compromise some. Spend one night you'd normally game doing something nice with her. "Honey, I thought that we could go to a movie or dinner (or stay in with a video) instead of me gaming tonight." would probably do wonders. I'm not saying quit, just cut back a bit if you want to keep the girl.
No girl likes to be ignored, and it's easy (as a geek) to get tunnel vision. If you focus on the games too long, though, you'll have the game, and lose the girl without too much effort.
It gave my youngest brother tics as well (he's autistic, and that's one of the meds he was on at the time).. his head would 'yank' to one side, he'd blink more often, etc.
;)
Of course, he was 6 at the time, and thought it was funny.
The upgrade's only like $100; or at least was the last time I saw it. That's the same as 4 games (depending on if you buy bleeding edge titles).
The thing that no one (especially MS) wants to say is that PC's have a much longer half-life than manufacturers would want. Perhaps if it were a black box, one OS would work. [Like gaming consoles, but even then weirdos try to put other OS's on them.]
Of course, you'd have thought that MS would lower the pricepoint with all the "competition" from Linux... but that's another story altogether.
I'm running XP at home, and I patch weekly. The patch for the sasser worm came out 3 weeks before the attack. Not only am I behind a firewall at home, but my systems are patched. I "upgraded" to 95 in '96, 98 in '99, and 2k in 2002. To XP... 2 months ago.
If you don't want to pay for windows, don't. Use linux/*BSD/something else that doesn't cost $200/license. You can download ISO's for the same amount you can download pirated windows discs. Whatever you decide to use, you should keep up with your patches.
Pirating software isn't just about cheap, it's about feeling entitled to software without paying for it.
My co-worker had a similar (but slightly different) issue. Corporate IT sent emails and program updates telling us "Important Security Patches!!!!! OMG You HAVE TO install!!!" (well, ok, more professional than that, but...)
So we both start the install at the same time. Wait, wait, twiddle thumbs, etc. Reboot time comes. My w2k box comes up fine. His... well... refuses to boot at all. Luckily, we have linux boxes as well. (We support unix & linux servers, but are required to have windows boxes for the "Corporate Software": Outlook, IE, Office, etc.) He spent a day copying off his data (using a knoppix CD) and another day rebuilding to the corporate standards.
Woohoo!
Windows:
My unix boxes usually have what I need for them; I don't tend to need to add extra crap to them to make them usable. :D
Then implement training at your site. At least suggest it. Computers are tools. We don't require people to get socket-wrench certified, or expect (most of) them to take telephone answering lessons. Most people think of computers in the same way.
Why should we expect users (consumers, customers, grandmas) to know everything about the complex tool that they've been given? Most people use their computer for email and surfing the web. They don't care about or want to know how it works. As long as it does.
As a "sysadmin", it is your job to make sure that users are able to work. Within those bounds, you may encounter issues with users doing stupid things. Most of the time, they don't realize what they're doing is what's bogging down their computer. Usually, if you say "I found that the problem was that you have [kazaa | bearshare | napster] installed, and it's what's bogging your PC down, and oh by the way, these things aren't allowed," people listen. Sometimes they even learn something.
Someone within your organization should have the authority to say "X is allowed, Y is not." and to have the authority to also say "You signed this piece of paper saying you wouldn't Y, and we have concrete evidence that you Y all the time. Your manager and HR have been notified."
IT is a service organization. Being arrogant about what you know versus what your users know doesn't work very well, and ends up getting us all branded as Nick Burns, Computer Guy.
As for the permissions bit, MS is both really good and really horrifyingly awful about user permissions. Yes, you can set it up so that the user has no power to install software, modify the registry, etc., but you'll end up with (a) a user who resents you or (b) several one-offs where the user has to have admin privileges to do their job or even (c) a user who finds their way around your rules and limitations.