yo, first of all, lighten up. Couldn't you detect my attempt at light humor in my parent post?:)
But ok, since you bought it up, things are never all that simple. Supporting multiple platforms involves more complex logistics. I need people trained in all areas, rolling out services means I would have to measure impact on all platforms, etc, etc...
Now I would love nothing better than to see the cancer that is Microsoft wiped out of here and go with all mac and linux desktops, but that's not current reality.
There are also things that only run on windows, like our PITA "Banner" client. So the few Mac users run out and buy virtual PC, load win98 in it, and expect support for that. well, we roll out a SOE XP desktop to all clients (standard operating environment) that is well tested. So now I not only have the mac issue to support, but also this POS windows 98 install within it.
What I'd like to see is all of these mission critical apps served out of a terminal services sesison, then what the user does on their own desktop is not as critical to the overall health of the business functions they do.
But like I said, I'm just a manager. I implement, I dont' decide.:(
For naming, The printers are all named and listed logically in Active Directory on the windows servers. There are only four Macs among 2000 PCs where I work and those Mac users are considered pariahs. Trust me on this one -- I'm the support manager there. I know.
Before you flame me, note I now have a Mac in my office and am loving it more each day I use it. Changing the culture in the organization, however, will be tough. I'm a manager, which means I get to decide how to implement policy, but I don't make it. And the current policy is, Macs are not supported nor approved for purchase. In fact, the Mac in my office is one we confiscated from Marketing when the decision was made (not mine) to convert them all to PCs. Their loss, my gain!
We'll see how things shake out for the future. I'm certainly being converted, so much so that I have a 12" G4 PB on order for my personal use.
(could make an interesting switcher story. I, the evil tech support manager, confiscated a Mac from those rebel marketing people, plugged it in, fell in love, kept it for myself, muhahahahha...)
Anyway, sounds like there must be a way in the jet direct cards to name the printer for rendevous purposes.... I'll take a look later, maybe, whenever I find I need to print something out!:)
1) Nice in theory but in practice, in my best ellen feiss tone, "huh?" I have a mac in my office, and sure enough there is a list of rendevous printers available, all with names like "hplj542502260123" -- as if I'm supposed to know which one is where...
2) Rendevous must be limited to a broadcast subnet. In my work site, subnets kind of snake all through the site due to historical reasons and growth over the years, so the subnet I am on spans two buildings, where across the hall those folks are on a different subnet. I know of a few cube office rooms where people in the same room are on two different subnets. Is there support in cisco routers to forward this traffic between nets? (or maybe that's not a good idea...)
3) ok, i lied. three things. Since when did itunes get ability to pick up other rendevous user playlists? (mentioned in that article). I sure don't see it... Am I missing something?
As a support manager, let me tell you that the TCO for a laptop is far greater than a desktop. Greater hardware failures, more user support issues, like roaming network support, they get lost, stolen, dropped, and they are generally less liked after a while than a desktop.
At my work, we went through a phase where everyone wanted and got a laptop. After a while, people got fed up with hauling them around, unstandard keyboards, and the expectation that since they had a laptop, they could do work at home. The shift now is back to desktops -- thank god.
I know it depends on the site and nature of the work. I need a laptop for example, but my office machine is a desktop.
I think they could do this right if there is money in it and they treat it seriously. I've been to concerts before and the camera work for the big screen monitors was done so well, I had to keep telling myself it was live. So if they can handle video, audio should be a snap. I saw Tina Turner about two years ago (wife dragged me:), and couldn't believe how well the camera work was done. Obviously, every step in that concert was carefully planned, including the camera guy that ran behind her with the camera near the ground pointing upwards at one point. But nonetheless, it was all flawless and if they sold DVDs even weeks later of it, I'd have bought it in a heartbeat.
Now CD... dunno. Some artists who are brilliant in the studio can really suck live, like Dream Theater. (to be fair, the muscians are always spot on, it's LaBrie that has troubles during some concerts and that can detract from the entire experience...)
Aragorn: Enough blood has been spilt on his account.
The only part of the movie that really bugged the hell out of me. Why the heck did they let that bugger go? Even if he didn't want to kill him, he could have at least jailed the guy until after the troubles. First time I saw that I wanted to yell out "You idiots, now where do you think he's going to go?"
Road Rash on the 3D0 kicked ass, even if it was psuedo-3D, the game play ruled and the music was the best. I later got Road Rash for my N64 and it was gawd-awful horrible.
The 3D0 also had the neatest Audio CD eye candy of the time too...
My 3D0 is still in my game cabinet, along with my other failure consoles, Dreamcast and N64. Seems like everytime I buy a console, it fails.
Yeah, but there's a problem. The receiving system can't reject the message until after it accepts it since the Subject is part of the DATA portion of the SMTP message. Therefore, I am still paying for the unwanted bandwidth (and I pay $2/gig from my colo provider for my server). Now if they could mandate an ADV string in the HELO or MAIL part of the conversation, the SMTP server could reject and close the connection immediately.
(I suppose that the SMTP server, upon seeing Subject: ADV could send a tcp-reset as the next packet and hope the sending end shuts up, but still not as nice as above)
I, as a service provider, should have the right to reject all ADV messages. If my customers don't like that policy (that would be clearly spelled out), they could move to a different provider (one which might accept micropayments for receiving ADV messages, which would bring down the cost of service to the customers, making *some* of them happy.)
Those in IT can at least take comfort in the fact that all over the country, the number of students going into IT related fields in higher ed is dropping dramatically. People coming out of high schools look at this current-bad market and are choosing other career paths. Where I work, a community college, enrollments in the CIS program are down 50% from last year. That should help dry up the supply side.
And come on, I'm sure we all have known a lot of wannabe coders who got jobs making insane bucks a few years ago and we couldn't figure out how they did it. Well, they are all dropping out of the field too. Companies hired a lot of people because they were desperate a few years ago, a lot of marginal or really suckass personnel. If Bush stops scaring the shit out of consumers and businesses and things settle down and this country gets back to business, they will start hiring again and people with true skills this time will succeed because there will be less of us. Only the real talented ones will be left.
(At least this is what I keep telling myself so I feel better...)
I've been at the same job for 21 years. It's a state job, which hasn't been the best paying, but I can retire in 4 years and pull a pension.
What also helps is I haven't let myself get too set in my ways. We've been through a lot of changes where I work.
First, it was Z80 assembler coding on Xerox 820 computers hooked to some ancient twisted-pair 307.2Kbps network. I wrote an OS for it. It ran until 1989.
Then in 1988 we got a Prime minicomputer and 386-based AT&T Unix system. I had to learn configure that Unix box having never touched vi before, had to figure out Primos and their gawd-awful ed program, and then taught myself C. Made sure all above ran TCP/IP so we could one day connect to public Internet, even though everyone else wanted X.25. In 1992 we connected.
In 1993 threw that all out and bought a Data General Aviion box running dg/ux and a nifty 20-slot RAID array system. Shortly after that I pushed a web server in my company and got them up with that. Chose to learn Perl, quickly preferred that over C.
In 1999 threw it all out and got a new fangled Storage Area Network with a rack of cheap (relatively) servers. An entire new technology to learn.
During above time I also became very proficient in Windows Systems administration, and currently manage a 50/50 mix of Windows under Active Directory for 13,000 user and Linux boxes.
I'm 43, I'm going to retire in 4 years with a pension and health insurance for life. At that time, I'll do riskier self-employment scene since the pay is better (if you can get the work) but the pension check will pay the bills during dry times. I've already purchased a server at johncompanies.com and have two paying clients and am working on more with goal to build it up until I retire and move to that stuff full-time.
Another opportunity is to teach. I taught part-time at a community college from 1984 to 1994 and enjoyed it. I also know, beings that I work for one in IT, that good teachers are hard for these places to find.
I do believe you're right though, mostly. I've seen it and had to fight from letting it happen to me. I've done a few wholesale platform shifts at my company and am ready to throw out windows servers and move to Linux based servers (already 50/50). I'm 43. I'm heading to get RHCE certification in April in that RH300 class. You can't get lazy and have to keep pounding the books and learning the latest tech.
Having an 8-node network in my house with a w2k server running active directory, a few XP clients, Linux boxes, and now a Mac running OS X helps provide me a great lab to learn and experiment with too...
p.s. I also have hair to my ass, don't own a car, ride a motorcycle or take the bus, and enjoy current bands like Staind, Shocore, Saliva, as well as more seasoned bands like Dream Theater, instead of listening to nothing but classic rock like most of my generation. In fact, Limp Bizkit's Break Stuff is my theme song!:)
It's all about refusing to grow up methinks...:)
Oh, and I'm eligible for paid retirement in 4 years too...
I realize there are alternatives and none are as bad as a vendor abandoning a proprietary chunk of software. What frosts me is, RHN is valuable to my company, we pay for it, use it, happy with it. But if RHN will only cover a year's worth of errata, then we will be forced to go back to manually keeping servers up to date, and hence not pay for RHN. THAT seems like a stupid idea on part of redhat. They will lose paying customers, and paying customers is something they really need.
I survived without RHN before, and will again. I love RHN and we pay thousands a year for it. I'd much rather remain a paying customer, but if I have to, we can live without RHN and go back to doing patches the old fashioned way, or find another solution like autorpm...
Yeah, but those versions you list, 5.2, etc, etc to 8.0 are not considered business versions by Redhat now -- they are now called consumer versions. But if you get an RHCE, that is what you are tested gainst, 8.0 -- not Advanced Server 2.1. You don't see the irony in that??!:)
I feel your pain. Now you will learn what old IT farts learn early on in their career. Sticking your neck out to do the right thing means getting shafted in the end. Eventually, after getting screwed a few times, you learn to play it safe and go with the flow. That's what kept IBM succesful for decades, and that is what is carrying Microsoft now.
I'm in the same boat. Sure, I can divert more of my tech staff to spend the extra time on a constant upgrade cycle, or manually patching older revs, but then that plays right into the hands of Microsoft's argument that Linux is more expensive in the long run because it's more of an effort to run it.
I thought I hit bliss city when I saw RHN. Management of all of my linux boxes, desktops and servers, with a few clicks on a web page. I eagerly got the funding to pay for it. Now, if it's only good for a year or I have to pay high dollars for AS, I start looking like the fool for switching.
The whole point of Redhat's very existence is SUPPORT.
Amen, and this is the argument I threw at my RH account rep. We currently pay a few grand annually for RHN enterprise and I am very happy with it. But if RHN stops offering errata after just one year, it's utility goes away from me and hence I'll stop paying for it. I'd bet others in my shoes will do the same thing. I'll either have to switch to another distro or start hand patching systems or just switch to Windows Server (well, hmm, I'm not *THAT* pissed off...:)
I don't have to pay $800/year for Windows XP for every desktop install of it. It seems my choice for Redhat on the desktop is either AS at $800/year for three years of support, or the "consumer" version for a one year support cycle.
Another thing people are missing is desktop installs, or doesn't redhat think people run redhat on their desktops? If you have hundreds of desktops to support, what do they expect? Annual upgrades to them all? Or make everyone pay $800/year for Advanced Server for each desktop installation?
Or have they just given up on the idea of using Redhat for corporate desktops instead of Windows? Well this policy seals that fate for sure.
There are a ton of companies still running NT 4.0 workstation out there for example.
The new enterprise RHN price is $2,500 for a minimum of 25 systems, then $100/year for each system above that. Trust me, that's worth it to me. Being able to browse to a web page and select updates and hit Submit and not worry about it (nor have to reboot unless its a kernel) is WONDERFUL. I wish I could do that for my Windows world.
But I have desktops too. Do they expect me to install Advanced Server on all of my work desktops?
OK, so they now say Redhat 8.0 etc releases are "consumer" releases only. You're supposed to use Advanced Server 2.x in business.
But the RHCE program is geared towards this same "consumer" release. Current RHCE is for Redhat 8.x version and you have to get recertified every other (consumer) major release number. So, what good is RHCE? You get certified to run your home Linux box then?
I don't mind paying $100/year/box like we do now for RHN. That's reasonable. But $800+/year for Advanced server is nuts. I can get (as an academic institution) Windows 2000 server for $350 perpetual, and Windows update is free. (ok, it doesn't include CALs, but we get them as part of our microsoft campus agreement)
I just can't update all of my linux servers and desktops every year. There's too much going on, like going to 8.0 means moving apache from 1.3 to 2.0 for example (or downgrading once installed). It takes time to test everything before doing big migrations.
Some people here might be able to fine tune their personal linux boxes with ease and see this as no big deal, but get into a corporate IT world where everything must be tested to death before even hotfixes or errata are applied, and then talk about dozens or hundreds of servers, and you'll understand that upgrading that quick isn't just possible.
You think it won't matter? I'm an IT manager with deadlines, stress, labor resource issues, budget shortages, etc, and it concerns me greatly. Won't take much for Microsoft to make a pitch for a stable and predictable environment to people like me to sway us... If you don't think so, you don't understand corporate mentality...
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But ok, since you bought it up, things are never all that simple. Supporting multiple platforms involves more complex logistics. I need people trained in all areas, rolling out services means I would have to measure impact on all platforms, etc, etc...
Now I would love nothing better than to see the cancer that is Microsoft wiped out of here and go with all mac and linux desktops, but that's not current reality.
There are also things that only run on windows, like our PITA "Banner" client. So the few Mac users run out and buy virtual PC, load win98 in it, and expect support for that. well, we roll out a SOE XP desktop to all clients (standard operating environment) that is well tested. So now I not only have the mac issue to support, but also this POS windows 98 install within it.
What I'd like to see is all of these mission critical apps served out of a terminal services sesison, then what the user does on their own desktop is not as critical to the overall health of the business functions they do.
But like I said, I'm just a manager. I implement, I dont' decide. :(
Before you flame me, note I now have a Mac in my office and am loving it more each day I use it. Changing the culture in the organization, however, will be tough. I'm a manager, which means I get to decide how to implement policy, but I don't make it. And the current policy is, Macs are not supported nor approved for purchase. In fact, the Mac in my office is one we confiscated from Marketing when the decision was made (not mine) to convert them all to PCs. Their loss, my gain!
We'll see how things shake out for the future. I'm certainly being converted, so much so that I have a 12" G4 PB on order for my personal use.
(could make an interesting switcher story. I, the evil tech support manager, confiscated a Mac from those rebel marketing people, plugged it in, fell in love, kept it for myself, muhahahahha...)
Anyway, sounds like there must be a way in the jet direct cards to name the printer for rendevous purposes.... I'll take a look later, maybe, whenever I find I need to print something out! :)
2) Rendevous must be limited to a broadcast subnet. In my work site, subnets kind of snake all through the site due to historical reasons and growth over the years, so the subnet I am on spans two buildings, where across the hall those folks are on a different subnet. I know of a few cube office rooms where people in the same room are on two different subnets. Is there support in cisco routers to forward this traffic between nets? (or maybe that's not a good idea...)
3) ok, i lied. three things. Since when did itunes get ability to pick up other rendevous user playlists? (mentioned in that article). I sure don't see it... Am I missing something?
At my work, we went through a phase where everyone wanted and got a laptop. After a while, people got fed up with hauling them around, unstandard keyboards, and the expectation that since they had a laptop, they could do work at home. The shift now is back to desktops -- thank god.
I know it depends on the site and nature of the work. I need a laptop for example, but my office machine is a desktop.
Now CD ... dunno. Some artists who are brilliant in the studio can really suck live, like Dream Theater. (to be fair, the muscians are always spot on, it's LaBrie that has troubles during some concerts and that can detract from the entire experience...)
Ha, fitting. Ever see the DrunkGamers.com switch parody?
That should make it easier to lift high-karma comments there and just paste them here for hopeful same effect.
Aragorn: Enough blood has been spilt on his account.
The only part of the movie that really bugged the hell out of me. Why the heck did they let that bugger go? Even if he didn't want to kill him, he could have at least jailed the guy until after the troubles. First time I saw that I wanted to yell out "You idiots, now where do you think he's going to go?"
The 3D0 also had the neatest Audio CD eye candy of the time too...
My 3D0 is still in my game cabinet, along with my other failure consoles, Dreamcast and N64. Seems like everytime I buy a console, it fails.
I think I'll go buy an X-box... :)
(I suppose that the SMTP server, upon seeing Subject: ADV could send a tcp-reset as the next packet and hope the sending end shuts up, but still not as nice as above)
I, as a service provider, should have the right to reject all ADV messages. If my customers don't like that policy (that would be clearly spelled out), they could move to a different provider (one which might accept micropayments for receiving ADV messages, which would bring down the cost of service to the customers, making *some* of them happy.)
I think Lessig will be looking for a job...
And come on, I'm sure we all have known a lot of wannabe coders who got jobs making insane bucks a few years ago and we couldn't figure out how they did it. Well, they are all dropping out of the field too. Companies hired a lot of people because they were desperate a few years ago, a lot of marginal or really suckass personnel. If Bush stops scaring the shit out of consumers and businesses and things settle down and this country gets back to business, they will start hiring again and people with true skills this time will succeed because there will be less of us. Only the real talented ones will be left.
(At least this is what I keep telling myself so I feel better...)
What also helps is I haven't let myself get too set in my ways. We've been through a lot of changes where I work.
First, it was Z80 assembler coding on Xerox 820 computers hooked to some ancient twisted-pair 307.2Kbps network. I wrote an OS for it. It ran until 1989.
Then in 1988 we got a Prime minicomputer and 386-based AT&T Unix system. I had to learn configure that Unix box having never touched vi before, had to figure out Primos and their gawd-awful ed program, and then taught myself C. Made sure all above ran TCP/IP so we could one day connect to public Internet, even though everyone else wanted X.25. In 1992 we connected.
In 1993 threw that all out and bought a Data General Aviion box running dg/ux and a nifty 20-slot RAID array system. Shortly after that I pushed a web server in my company and got them up with that. Chose to learn Perl, quickly preferred that over C.
In 1999 threw it all out and got a new fangled Storage Area Network with a rack of cheap (relatively) servers. An entire new technology to learn.
During above time I also became very proficient in Windows Systems administration, and currently manage a 50/50 mix of Windows under Active Directory for 13,000 user and Linux boxes.
I'm 43, I'm going to retire in 4 years with a pension and health insurance for life. At that time, I'll do riskier self-employment scene since the pay is better (if you can get the work) but the pension check will pay the bills during dry times. I've already purchased a server at johncompanies.com and have two paying clients and am working on more with goal to build it up until I retire and move to that stuff full-time.
Another opportunity is to teach. I taught part-time at a community college from 1984 to 1994 and enjoyed it. I also know, beings that I work for one in IT, that good teachers are hard for these places to find.
I do believe you're right though, mostly. I've seen it and had to fight from letting it happen to me. I've done a few wholesale platform shifts at my company and am ready to throw out windows servers and move to Linux based servers (already 50/50). I'm 43. I'm heading to get RHCE certification in April in that RH300 class. You can't get lazy and have to keep pounding the books and learning the latest tech.
Having an 8-node network in my house with a w2k server running active directory, a few XP clients, Linux boxes, and now a Mac running OS X helps provide me a great lab to learn and experiment with too...
p.s. I also have hair to my ass, don't own a car, ride a motorcycle or take the bus, and enjoy current bands like Staind, Shocore, Saliva, as well as more seasoned bands like Dream Theater, instead of listening to nothing but classic rock like most of my generation. In fact, Limp Bizkit's Break Stuff is my theme song! :)
It's all about refusing to grow up methinks... :)
Oh, and I'm eligible for paid retirement in 4 years too...
I survived without RHN before, and will again. I love RHN and we pay thousands a year for it. I'd much rather remain a paying customer, but if I have to, we can live without RHN and go back to doing patches the old fashioned way, or find another solution like autorpm...
They also don't have academic discounts, which ironically means Windows Server is cheaper for us than Advanced Server.
Yeah, but those versions you list, 5.2, etc, etc to 8.0 are not considered business versions by Redhat now -- they are now called consumer versions. But if you get an RHCE, that is what you are tested gainst, 8.0 -- not Advanced Server 2.1. You don't see the irony in that??! :)
If by desktop channels you mean redhat 8.0 et al, then yes, but it EOLs after a year, and that is the problem...
Microsoft support costs me the $750/year for a technet subscription. Self-help, about what I get for Linux.
I'm in the same boat. Sure, I can divert more of my tech staff to spend the extra time on a constant upgrade cycle, or manually patching older revs, but then that plays right into the hands of Microsoft's argument that Linux is more expensive in the long run because it's more of an effort to run it.
I thought I hit bliss city when I saw RHN. Management of all of my linux boxes, desktops and servers, with a few clicks on a web page. I eagerly got the funding to pay for it. Now, if it's only good for a year or I have to pay high dollars for AS, I start looking like the fool for switching.
Amen, and this is the argument I threw at my RH account rep. We currently pay a few grand annually for RHN enterprise and I am very happy with it. But if RHN stops offering errata after just one year, it's utility goes away from me and hence I'll stop paying for it. I'd bet others in my shoes will do the same thing. I'll either have to switch to another distro or start hand patching systems or just switch to Windows Server (well, hmm, I'm not *THAT* pissed off... :)
I have one. Windows XP.
I don't have to pay $800/year for Windows XP for every desktop install of it. It seems my choice for Redhat on the desktop is either AS at $800/year for three years of support, or the "consumer" version for a one year support cycle.
Or have they just given up on the idea of using Redhat for corporate desktops instead of Windows? Well this policy seals that fate for sure.
There are a ton of companies still running NT 4.0 workstation out there for example.
But I have desktops too. Do they expect me to install Advanced Server on all of my work desktops?
But the RHCE program is geared towards this same "consumer" release. Current RHCE is for Redhat 8.x version and you have to get recertified every other (consumer) major release number. So, what good is RHCE? You get certified to run your home Linux box then?
I just can't update all of my linux servers and desktops every year. There's too much going on, like going to 8.0 means moving apache from 1.3 to 2.0 for example (or downgrading once installed). It takes time to test everything before doing big migrations.
Some people here might be able to fine tune their personal linux boxes with ease and see this as no big deal, but get into a corporate IT world where everything must be tested to death before even hotfixes or errata are applied, and then talk about dozens or hundreds of servers, and you'll understand that upgrading that quick isn't just possible.
You think it won't matter? I'm an IT manager with deadlines, stress, labor resource issues, budget shortages, etc, and it concerns me greatly. Won't take much for Microsoft to make a pitch for a stable and predictable environment to people like me to sway us... If you don't think so, you don't understand corporate mentality...